THE  CERdNDIAL  CONSTRUCTION  IN  THE  ROMANIC  LANGUAGES. 

By  Samuel  Garner. 


/. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

He  vvlio  enters  upon  an  investigation  in 
philology,  where  the  subject  concerns  the 
language  of  early  writers,  whose  works  have 
been  preserved  to  us  in  manuscript  form,  is 
not  infrequently  met  on  the  very  threshold  of 
his  inquiry  by  a  consideration  which  must  in 
no  small  degree  tend  to  dampen  his  ardor — I 
mean  the  uncertainty,  in  the  event  of  his  not 
having  access  to  the  manuscripts,  of  the  value 
of  the  forms  given  by  the  editions  he  intends 
to  follow,  as  conijrared  with  the  actual  forms 
which  may  have  been  used  by  the  authors 
themselves.  The  notorious  negligence  of  the 
middle-age  copyists  and  their  frequent  tamper¬ 
ing  with  the  te.xts  of  their  authors,  either  to 
satisfy  their  own  personal  whims  or  through 
ignorance  of  the  language  or  dialect  of  the 
writers  whose  j^roductions  they  essayed  to 
multiply,  are  too  well  known  to  need  much 
comment  here.  Add  to  this  that  even  some  of 
the  men  of  the  present  day  who  undertake  the 
editing  of  such  manuscripts,  are  often  as 
capricious  and  dishonest  in  making  up  their 
editions  as  the  old  copyists  themselves,  and 
the  investigator  may  well  have  cause  to  doubt 
the  value  of  his  conclusions,  even  when  most 
carefully  drawn.  Mr.  L.  Clddat  hasjust  given 
us  a  fine  specimen  of  this  cacoethes  emendandi 
in  his  edition  of  the  Chanson  de  Roland  lately 
published.  (Paris,  Gamier,  1886.)  Acting  on 
the  assumption  that  “  la  majority  des  roman- 
istes  ”  consider  the  Roland  of  French  origin, 
which,  to  say  the  least,  is  very  cjuestionable, 
he  proceeds  to  francisize  the  Oxford  text  on 
the  model  of  the  French  of  the  eleventh  cen¬ 
tury,  from  which  modern  French  jrroper  is 
derived.  The  result  is  not  simply  a  “nouvelle 
Edition,”  as  he  styles  it,  but  likewise  an  “  Edi¬ 
tion  neuve.”  But  this  method  of  procedure  is 
not  confined  to  this  species  of  writings  ;  it  is  a 
mania  that  has  extended  to  more  recent 
authors  as  well.  Very  few  of  the  ordinary 
editions  of  modern  classic  authors,  for  in¬ 
stance,  would  be  trustworthy  for  philological 


Reprinted  from  Modern  LANr.DAGK  Notes,  Volume  II. 
No.  3. 


im'estigation.  We  all  know  of  Bentley’s  un¬ 
happy  attempt  at  emending  the  text  of  Milton. 
Some  copyists  and  editors  seem  to  have  a- 
dopted  the  principle  that  any  decided  deviation 
in  point  of  spelling  or  syntax,  not  current  at 
their  time,  was  an  indication  that  the  author 
did  not  know  what  was  right  and  must  needs 
be  corrected  by  his  more  fortunate  successors. 
In  this  way  many  of  the  most  important  works 
of  early  writers  have  been  lost  to  us,  as  far  as 
the  original  form  is  concerned,  and  their  value 
for  philological  purposes  is  accordingly  di¬ 
minished  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  mutila¬ 
tion  suffered.  As  an  additional  instance  of 
how  one  of  the  old  F'rench  authors  has  been 
treated  by  a  modern  editor,  may  be  cited  the 
case  of  the  Roman  de  Ron,  edited  and  pub¬ 
lished  over  fifty  years  ago  by  Pluquet. 

Wace’s  poem  is  i^reserved  in  a  manuscript 
known  as  the  Duchesne  MS.  (because  copied 
by  Andrd  Duchesne  from  an  earlier  MS.),  which 
belongs  to  the  “Biblioth&que  Nationale  ”  at 
Paris.  Pluquet  professed  to  have  made  this 
MS.  the  basis  of  his  edition;  but  a  new  edition 
has  been,  within  the  last  decade,  gotten  out  by 
a  German  savant  (Hugo  Andresen),  who  found, 
by  a  comparison  of  Pluquet's  text  with  Du¬ 
chesne’s,  that  by  no  possibility  could  he 
have  consulted  (or  at  least  followed)  this  MS. 
for  the  readings  which  he  attributed  to  it, 
since  many  of  these  readings  are  not  to 
be  found  there,  even  when  he  refers  specially 
to  Duchesne  in  his  foot  notes.  A  close 
examination  showed  that  Pluquet  had 
been  guilty  of  the  most  unparalleled  dis¬ 
honesty  ;  that  instead  of  basing  his  edition  on 
Duchesne’s  text,  he  had  followed  in  great 
measure  the  worst  of  the  three  existing  copies, 
made  from  the  Duchesne;  and  further  that  he 
had  even  taken  the  most  unwarrantable  liber¬ 
ties  with  this — changing  words,  phrases  and 
whole  sentences,  leaving  out  and  adding  lines, 
just  as  it  suited  his  fancy,  and  that  too,  where 
there  was  not  the  slightest  excuse  for  it  ;  as 
neither  the  sense,  the  grammar  nor  the  meter 
offered  any  difficulty.  Observe  now  the  bane¬ 
ful  consequences  resulting  from  this  criminal 
proceeding  of  Pluquet.  'Phe  Roman  de  Ron, 
being  very  characteristic  from  a  linguistic 
standpoint,  has  played  an  important  part  in 


I 


The  Gcriiudial  Co7istriiction  in  the  A’onianic  Languages. 


determining  man\'  points  of  Old  French  syntax 
and  morpliology.  Perceiving  the  frequent 
occurrence  in  Pluquet’s  text  of  certain  forms 
of  the  present  indicative,  third  person  singular 
of  verbs  of  the  first  conjugation  (as  acorci,  inant, 
kuid  and  knit),  Kaynouard  accepted  them  as 
the  normal  forms  w  hereas  the  manuscript  gives 
only  acorde,  niande,  cuide.  Error  once  en¬ 
gendered  usually  ]rropagates  itself  w'ith  the 
same  persistency  as  truth  ;  and  so  Diez, 
following  in  the  wake  of  Raynouard  in  trust¬ 
ing  to  the  fidelity  of  Pluquet,  gave,  in  the 
first  edition  of  his  “  Gi'aniniatik  dcr  Roman- 
ischen  Sprachen,”  viand,  pens,  os,  kuid,  as 
abbreviated  forms  of  the  third  singular, 
and  he  continued  faithfully  yet  innocently 
to  reproduce  them  in  the  two  subsequently 
revised  editions  of  his  grammar,  which 
he  published  during  his  life-time.  (See 
the  “  Dritte,  neu  bearbeitete  nnd  vermehrte 
Aufiage  ”  of  1872,  vol.  II,  p.  232).  It  may  be 
added  that  even  the  5th  edition  (1882)  con^ 
tains  these  forms  originally  cited  by  Diez 
from  Raynouard. 

Little  inaccuracies  of  this  kind  may  be  of 
trifling  import,  as  far  as  the  general  results 
of  F'rench  philological  research  are  concerned, 
but ’they  teach  a  lesson  which  it  behooves 
every  investigator  to  keep  before  his  mind  : 
namely,  that  philology  is  not,  as  some  would 
have  us  believe,  an  exact  science  ;  because  its 
results  are  largely  arrived  at  through  channels 
subject  to  all  the  influences  of  human  weak¬ 
ness  and  the  ravages  of  time ;  and  that  the 
apparent  facts  of  to-day  may  turn  out  to  be 
errors  in  the  brighter  light  of  the  dawn  of 
the  morrow. 

The  reasoning  in  the  following  pages,  w'here 
early  works  are  cited,  has  been  based,  in  the 
main,  on  examples  drawn  from  texts  that 
have  passed  through  the  mill  of  the  canons  of 
textual  criticism.  The  correctness,  therefore, 
of  certain  details  and  statements  depends  on 
the  genuineness  of  the  texts  consulted,  many  of 
which  have  not  always  been  found  as  satis¬ 
factory  as  could  have  been  desired. 

Quotations  from  old  authors  have  usually 
been  accompanied  by  references,  where  this 
was  convenient.  In  the  case  of  modern  writers, 
it  was  not  thought  necessary  to  give  more  than 
the  name,  since  the  correctness  of  the  illustra¬ 


tive  examples  will  be  recognized  by  any  one 
acquainted  with  the  languages  from  which 
they  have  been  taken. 

B.  means  Bartsch,  and  refers  to  his  Chresto- 
mathies,  unless  it  is  otherwise  stated. 

II. 

KOK.MS,  THEIR  DERIVATION,  &C. 

The  origin  of  the  various  forms  of  the  gerund 
offers  no  difficult  problem  in  point  of  |iho- 
netics.  Most  of  the  languages  and  their  dia¬ 
lects  kept  very  close  to  the  Latin  originals,  the 
Italian  (properly  so-called)  and  the  Portuguese 
probably  differing  less  in  details  than  the  other 
members  of  the  group.  Only  one  of  the  four 
cases  of  the  Latin  gerund,  how  ever,  has  sur¬ 
vived  in  the  Romanic  tongues ;  and  this,  in 
view  of  its  earliest  syntatical  relations,  gram¬ 
marians  have  siqjposed  to  be  the  ablative, 
although  no  positive  proof  can  be  offered  in 
favor  of  this  ;  as,  excepting  the  geniti\  e,  any  of 
the  other  cases  would  give  us  the  same  forms. 
'I'he  fact  though  of  the  gerund’s  usually  ex¬ 
pressing  causal,  instrumental,  temporal  and 
other  adverbial  relations,  must  be  a  potent 
argument  in  fa\  or  of  its  ablati\  e  derivation. 

The  Italian,  Spanish,  Portuguese  and  ^\'al- 
lachian  all  retained  the  terminal  wa' of  the  par¬ 
ent  speech.  The  first  three  likewise  retained 
the  final  o  of  the  Latin,  if  we  accept  the  abla¬ 
tive  as  the  original  source;  whereas  the  Wal- 
lachian  gerund,  through  the  general  tendency 
of  the  end-vowels  (especially  o)  to  go  over  into 
u's  appears  as  ndii.  As  this  ti  is  always  silent 
in  pronunciation,  except  where  the  gerund  is 
accompanied  by  a  conjunctive  pronoun,  which 
is  tacked  on  to  the  end  and  forms  one  word 
with  it,  it  is  common  to  drop  it  at  the  present 
day,  and  we  have  nd  as  the  ending  of  all  the 
conjugations.  The  vocal  elements  preceding 
the  terminations  ndo  and  ndii  are  sometimes 
determined  by  the  Latin  vowels,  but  more  fre¬ 
quently  by  the  vow'el  preceding  the  r  of  the 
infiniti\-e  in  the  respecti\e  languages,  this 
vowel  being  occasionally  modified  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  certain  regular  phonetic  changes 
observed  under  similar  conditions. 

Examples;  Ital.  cantare,  cantando;  \  endere, 
vendendo;  service,  servendo :  .Sp.  cantar, 
cantando;  vender,  vendiendo;  partir,  partiendc: 

I  Port,  cantar,  cantando;  vender,  vendiendo; 


2 


The  Cicrnndial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Laitguagcs. 


partir,  partindo ;  p6r,  i^ondo :  Wal.  a  caiitfi, 
cantandu;  a  tace,  tacendii;  a  alege,  alegendil ; 
a  audi,  audindii.  These  are  tlie  usual  methods 
of  formation  for  these  four  languages;  sjrecial 
or  exceptional  cases  vve  need  not  stop  here  to 
can\ass. 

It  may  he  parenthetically  noticed  in  passing, 
that,  like  the  French,  some  of  the  Italian  dia¬ 
lects  have  taken  as  a  model  the  first  conjuga¬ 
tion  in  the  formaticm  of  their  gerunds,  hut 
strange  to  say,  and  in  this  they  dift'er  from  the 
French,  as  will  he  seen,  they  have  observed 
the  regular  method  for  their  present  partici¬ 
ples.  In  the  “Cronica  deli  Imperadori,”  a 
X'enetian  work  of  1301,  I  have  noted  these 
forms  :  crezando,  vezando,  volgiando  (volendo) 
ahiaiuhj,  sai)iando,  siando,  condugando,  tra- 
gando,  digando,  vignando,  tegnando,  fazando, 
metando,  pcjrtando,  avrando  (aprendo),  moran- 
do,  (only  zermendo  28®) ;  but  participles :  res- 
plendente,  continente,  dormiente,  reverente, 
ohediente. 

'I'his  same  phenomenon  is  ohservahle  in  the 
Genoese  dialect,  as  may  he  seen  from  the 
following  forms  taken  from  some  “Rime  geno- 
vese  della  fine  del  secolo  XIII  e  del  principio 
del  XI\’.:  fazando,  temando,  vegnando,  digan¬ 
do,  odando,  scrivando,  discorrando,  shatando, 
respondando,  prometando,  sentaiulo,  hevando, 
ferando ;  hut,  ohediente,  ardente,  corrente, 
spuzente,  and  even  parlente,  instead  of  ])ar- 
lante. 

These  gerunds  in  ndo  and  ndh  remain  in¬ 
variable  for  all  genders  and  numhers.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  Rarcianfl,  however,,  tlie  W'^allachian 
gerund  is  susceptible  of  inllection  to  indicate 
gender  and  number,  whenever  treated  as  an 
adjective.  “Wird  aher  das  Mittelwort  [gerun- 
dium]  der  gegenwiirtigen  Zeit  als  ein  Reiwort 
hetrachtet,  claim  ist  es  der  Biegung  unterwor- 
fen,  wie  jedes  ideale  Beiwort ;  z.  B.  gemend’a 
omenire  trehue  ajutata— omenirea,  ce  genre 
der  leidenden  Menschheit  muss  geholfen 
werden.”  It  may  he  cpiestioned  whether  it  is 
corredt  to  treat  these  inflected  forms  as  identi¬ 
cal  with  the  gerund.  'I'here  is  no  analogy  for 
it  in  the  other  Romance  languages,  for  the 
instances  of  inflected  gerunds  in  the  French 
were  not  brought  about  by  a  disirosition  to  in¬ 
flect  this  part  of  sireech,  hut  through  confusion 
— that  is,  misuse  of  the  present  jrarticiple  on 


account  of  the  formal  identity  of  the  two.  This 
could  not  have  been  the  case  in  the  Wal- 
lachian,  as  the  participle  and  gerund  were  too 
clearly  defined.  It  may  be  further  remarked 
that  the  Wallachian  presents  but  very  few 
cases  of  the  apparently  inflected  gerund,  and 
I  would  venture  the  following  suggestion  as  a 
possible  explanation  of  the  phenomenon  : 
namely,  that  they  are  not  gerunds  but  the 
remains  of  the  Latin  gerundive  (or  future 
jrarticiple  in  dus),  which  of  course  always 
agreed  with  the  noun-subject  in  gender,  num¬ 
ber,  &c. 

Kiihner  is  of  opinion  that  the  gerundive  first 
had  the  meaning  of  a  present  participle  :  “liber 
legendus=ein  Buch  das  gelesen  wird,  in 
welcher  Bedeutung  das  Gerundiv  wirklich 
gebraucht  wird.”  It  was  not  until  later,  he 
shows,  that  the  idea  of  necessity  was  de\’eloped. 

Regarded  from  this  standpoint  they  would 
not  be  peculiar  to  the  Wallachian.  Instances 
are  quite  common  in  Italian  : 

E  quante  in  pace  hai  sparte 
Opre  ammirande. 

(Vincenza  da  Filicaja) 

Del  memorando  acquisto 
A  te  I'onor  si  serbe. , 

( I)itto) 

E  non  ardi  il  mio  genio 
Sui  venerandi  avelli. 

({lofFredi  Mameli ) 
Colpo  meno  esecrando 
La  natia  sede  invadere. 

(Ales.  Paerio). 

These  are  evidently  the  Latin  participle  in 
dus ;  and  similar  words  are  to  be  met  with  in 
Spanish  and  Portuguese ;  but  they  are  not 
essentially  different  from  the  verbal  adjectives 
in  : 

Acum  o  s&ptffmana  doamna  N . era  trista 

si  suferindS. 

(\’asilie  Alecsandri) 

Si  nu  voiescti  a-i  demite  fiamandi. 

(Math.  X\',  32). 

The  objection  may  be  raised  to  this  explan¬ 
ation,  that  it  supposes  in  the  Wallachian  a 
change  from  a  passive  to  an  active  meaning  ; 
true,  but  in  becoming  inflected,  it  loses  its 
power  at  once  to  govern  a  case,  in  other  words 
it  becomes  intransitive.  d'his  implies  the 
retention  of  a  certain  amount  of  its  j^assivity, 
and  would  only  be  analogous  to  the  passive 
jvarticiple  assuming  an  active  meaning,  when 
constructed  with  the  preposition  .Yc :  usor  de 


3 


The  Gcrundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  f.anguages. 


portat,  easy  to  carry ;  casa  aceasta  este  de 
vindut,  this  house  is  for  sale,  (to  sell,  like  the 
Eiig.  to  let).  In  German  we  liave  the  rex'erse  : 
ein  zu  verkaufendes  haus. 

Moreover,  the  distinction  between  gerund 
and  gerundive,  active  and  passive,  has  not 
been  settled  beyond  a  peradventure ;  for  while 
in  the  general  outlines  of  their  functions  they 
may  be  pronounced,  the  one  active  and  the 
other  passive  ;  still  individual  instances  arise,  ! 
which  point  to  a  latent  consciousness,  as  it 
were,  of  the  identity  of  these  two  parts  of 
speech.  Kriiger,  though  maintaining  the 
activity  of  the  gerund,  concedes  that  it  may 
sometimes  be  passive  in  force  (so  finden  sich 
auch  die  Gerundia  in  einer  solchen  [passiven] 
Bedentung  gebraucht),  and  cites,  among  other 
examples:  “spes  restituendi  nulla  erat  ”  and 
“memoria excolendo augetur.”  This  is. signifi¬ 
cant  as  showing  the  possible  identity  of 
gerund  and  participle  in  dus\  and  efforts  have 
been  made  to  prove  tliis,  but  not  with  com¬ 
plete  success.  The  most  that  can  be  said  is, 
that  they  both,  at  times,  desert  their  proper 
provinces.  A  \  ery  decided  case  of  this  is  seen 
in  Aeneid  IX.  7 ; 

Turne,  quod  optanti  divfim  permittere  nemcr 
Auderet,  volvenda  dies  en  attulit  ultrb. 

Wax^votvcnda  has  the  force  of  votvens  and  is 
analogous  to  the  Wallachian  usage. 

riiere  is  found  likewise  in  Plautus  a  con¬ 
struction,  imitated  by  \'arro  (who  affected 
an  archaic  style)  and  Lucretius,  in  which  the 
neuter  of  the  participle  in  dus  is  used  actively, 
at  least  what  amounts  to  the  same,  although 
the  grammarians  would  account  for  it  other¬ 
wise. 

Mihi  hac  nocte  agitandum  est  vigilias. 

(Plautus,  Trill.  I\'.  2.27) 

Hos  veteranos  [boves]  ex  campestribus  locis 
non  emendum  in  dura  ac  montana. 

(\'arro,  K.  R.  I.  20). 

Nunc  ratio  nulla  est  resiandi,  nulla  facultas, 

Aeternas  quoniam  poenas  in  inorie  timendumst. 

{Lucretius,  De  Rer.  Nat.  I,  no). 

W'e  shall,  too,  see  furtlier  on,  that,  in  Merov¬ 
ingian  Latin,  the  particijile  in  dus  was  used 
actively  and  made  to  govern  the  same  case  as 
its  verb. 

This  may  not  prove  my  thesis  with  reference 
to  the  Wbdlachian  gerund  adjectively  em¬ 


ployed,  but  it  is  strongly  suggestive.  It  cer¬ 
tainly  is  not  easy  to  see,  how  a  word,  which 
expressed  only  adverbial  relations  and  which, 
moreover,  was  virtually  a  noun  in  an  oblique 
case,  could  liave  acquired  an  adjective  use.  In 
fact  Diez,  although  ciuoting  with  approval  from 
the  jiassage  of  Barciantt  above  given,  says 
somewhat  inconsistently  :  “  Diese  Casusform 
[Al.'lativ]  erweiterte  allmahlich  ihren  Bereich 
auf  Kosten  des  Part,  praes.  aber  nur  des 
verbalen  :  die  adjective  Bedentung  kommt  ihr 
niclit  zu,  vielmelir  lehnt  sie  sich  wie  der  In- 
finitiv  an  ein  \'erbum  oder  aucli  apiiositicinell 
an  ein  Substantiv.  Man  sagt  z.  B.  it.  un  fan- 
ciullo  giuocante  (die  giuoca)  aber  un  fanciullo 
si  divertiva  giuocando  ;  altsp.  una  virgen  dur- 
miente,  aberTuiste  virgen  durmiendot!  velando 
(im  schlafen  und  wachen)  Flor.  1.  6;  fr.  une 
femme  mourante,  aber  une  femme  parla  en 
mourant.” 

This  is  a  distinction  wliich  it  behooves  us  to 
keep  constantly  before  our  minds,  when  sjieak- 
ing  of  the  gerund.  'Phe  real  gerund  is  not  an 
adjective  modifier  and  conseciuently  never 
changes  its  form.  Wlien  in  Purgatorio  IX.  38, 
we  read  :  trafugo  lui  dormendo  in  le  sue  brac- 
cia,  dormendo  does  not  actually  (though  logic¬ 
ally  it  does)  agree  with  tui;  it  is  to  be  inter¬ 
preted  :  in  sonno  or  7icl  atto  di  dormire.  Other 
cases  may  be  analysed  in  the  same  way.  As 
in  the  Cid  :  Rodrigo  Diaz  de  \'ivar.  Despues 
que  gan6  fi  Valencia  Como  bueno  guerreando, 
\hvia  'a  placer  en  ella,  where  we  may  translate: 
as  a  good  warrior,  while  it  is  grammatically: 
as  one  good  in  warring. 

The  present  participles,  where  they  exist  in 
Italian,  S]ianish,  Portuguese  and  W'allacliian, 
all  end  in  nte,  the  antecedent  vowel  generally 
depending  on  the  same  conditions  as  for  the 
gerund.  It  is  only  the  Italian,  though,  that  is 
capable  of  creating  ]iarticiples  for  all  its  verbs. 
The  S[)anish,  Portuguese  and  Wallachian  have, 
for  the  most  part,  lost  them.  'Phose  that  are 
left  are  used  only  as  nouns,  adjectives  or 
prepositions.  In  no  case  do  they  perform  anv 
of  the  functions  of  the  verb.  In  the  early 
.Spanish  and  Portuguese  writers  a  few  siioradic 
cases  are  found  of  participles  retaining  their 
verbal  force  ;  but  they  are  not  sufiiciently 
numerous  to  establish  any  princi|)Ie,  and  they 
are  hardly  to  be  regarded  as  belonging  to  the 


4 


The  Ger-undial  Constr7iction  m  the  Romanic  Languages. 


syntax  of  these  languages.  Lusiads  V.  22  is 
an  undoubted  Latinism. 

E  pelo  c^o  chovendo  em  fim  voou, 

Porque  co’  a  agua  a  jacente  agua  molhe. 

Tasso  shows  a  great  fondness  for  these 
Latinisms ;  and  of  writers  of  a  recent  day  I 
believe  it  may  be  'said  that  Silvio  Pellico  uses 
the  present  participle  oftener  with  a  verbal 
force  than  is  customary  in  modern  Italian. 
Like  the  Latin  these  participles  have  but  one 
form  for  both  masculine  and  feminine,  the 
only  inflexional  change  being  to  indicate  num¬ 
ber. 

We  have  now  to  speak  of  the  Provencal  and 
French,  which  have  been  reserved  for  the  last, 
because  they  belong  to  a  special  category,  in 
that  they  have  departed  more  widely  from  the 
parent  speech  than  the  others  in  their  formal 
development,  and  hence  have  to  be  grouped 
by  themselves.  The  Langue  d’Oc  preserved 
both  the  participle  and  the  gerund  of  the  Latin 
and,  according  to  Diez’s  table  of  inflexions, 
the  regular  forms  are ;  gerund  and  en ; 
participle  an-s  and  en-s  ;  that  is,  the  one  being 
distinguished  from  the  other  only  by  the  5. 
This  distinction,  however,  was  not  always 
heeded.  In  fact,  two  of  the  old  Proven5al 
grammars,  the  “  Donatz  Proensals,”  and  the 
“  Razos  de  Trobar”  of  Raimon  Mdal,  make 
no  such  division  in  denominating  the  parts  of 
the  verb.  The  former,  in  speaking  of  the  case- 
endings  of  nouns  and  adjectives,  says  :  “Si  cum 
sun  li  particip  que  finissen  in  ans  uel  e^is,  queu 
pos  dire  ‘  aquest  chaual  es  presans,  aquesta 
domna  es  presans,  aquestz  canals  es  avinens, 
aquesta  domnaes  avinens.’  Mas  el  nominatiu 
plural  se  camia  daitan  que  conven  a  dire  ‘aquelh 
chaual  sun  avinen,  aquelas  donas  sun  avinens’.” 
In  two  or  three  other  places,  reference  is  made 
to  the  participle  but  there  is  no  mention, 
throughout  the  whole  treatise,  of  the  gerund. 
Mdal  likewise  observes  complete  silence  in 
respect  to  the  distinction  between  gerund  and 
participle,  and  we  may  infer  that  the  former 
was  regarded  merely  as  the  participle  minus 
the  s.  The  early  Provengal  writers  were  evi¬ 
dently  not  aware  of  any  difference  of  origin  ; 
and  there  was  no  reason  why  they  should  have 
been,  since  the  oldest  documents  present  no 
forms  with  clearer  outlines  than  those  of  a 
more  recent  date. 


Like  the  Italian  dialects  above  illustrated, 
the  French  modeled  all  its  gerunds  on  the  first 
conjugation,  but  went  even  further  than  these 
dialects  and  treated  the  present  participle  in 
the  same  manner.*  Burguy,  who,  with  all  his 
short-comings,  must  be  admitted  to  have 
been  a  scholar,  assigns,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a 
strange  reason  for  this.  He  says  in  this  con¬ 
nection  : 

Le  participe  pr&ent  des  quatre  conjugaisons 
a  toujours  eu  la  flexion  ant\  on  rejeta  sans 
doute  en  (-ens)  pour  distinguer  orthographi- 
quement  le  participe  de  la  troisi^me  pers.  pi. 
prds.  ind.  et  parce  que  la  prononciation  de  Ve 
devant  n  est  la  meme  que  celle  de  I’rt.”  This 
is  making  a  statement  in  face  of  the  fact  that 
no  such  change  of  ^  to  a  was  thought  necessary, 
under  like  conditions,  in  Provencal.  Moreover, 
it  is  not  true,  as  is  implied  in  the  latter  part  of 
of  his  sentence,  that  the  participle  and  the  third 
person  pi.  of  the  verb  w'ere  pronounced  alike. 
It  is  true  that  en{t)  and  an(t)  assonate  and 
rime  with  each  other  ; 

Femmes  lui  van  detras  seguen 
Ploran  lo  van  et  gaimentan. 

(La  Passion,  B.  ii.  i6j. 

Tel  conseiller  ne  fut  onques  vivant 
Ne  plus  sages  homme  i  mon  escient. 

(Roman  d’Aquin,  1.  1612). 

But  in  the  case  of  the  participle  and  the  verb, 
there  was  one  thing  which  completely  distin- 

*We  must  go  to  the  oblique  cases  for  all  the  forms  of  the 
participle — even  for  the  sibilant  forms  arts,  anz.  Latin 
annuls  would  have  given,  not  ainans,  antanz,  but  atiies,  as 
infans  gave  enfeSj  while  infantem  produced  enfant.  So  tak¬ 
ing  the  accusative  amantem  as  the  norm,  we  should  obtain 
analogously  amant  (later  but  incorrectly  When  the 

flexional  sibilant  {s,  z)  was  added,  the  dental  dropped  out. 
Ainando  {-uni)  appears  in  French  only  as  amant  (ainiant); 
there  was  probably,  however,  an  intermediate  form,  amand, 
the  sonant  then  going  over  into  its  corresponding  surd  at  a 
time  when  the  final  consonants  were  still  sounded,  (quando= 
quand  is  nearly  always  quant  in  O.  F.).  This  process  of  eu¬ 
phony  (i,  e.  ease  of  utterance  according  to  the  present  defini¬ 
tion),  similar  to  the  German,  was  the  universal  custom  in 
early  French  and  Provencal,  and  hence:  b=p;  g=c;  d=t;  v=f, 
(preserved  in  modern :  grand  homme,  sang  et  eau,  etc., 
which  are  pronounced  :  grant  homme,  sank  et  eau).  These 
changes,  as  a  general  rule,  took  place,  whether  the  sonants 
became  final  through  the  natural  growth  of  the  words  out  of 
the  Latin  or  through  inflexion.  Only  in  the  Passion  and  a 
few  other  poems  do  we  observe  a  strong  opposite  dialectic 
tendency  in  respect  to  the  final  t’s\  leved,  anned,  aproismed 
conforted,  defended,  acusand. 


0 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


guished  the  two  forms  to  the  ear,  namely  the 
tonic  accent,  w'hich  must  have  influenced  the 
quality  of  the  final  vowels,  that  is,  in  fimssent 
(verb)  the  last  vowel  would  be  either  not  heard 
at  all  or  very  obscurely,  while  in  _finisshit{em), 
the  e  would  be  a  full  sonorous  sound. 

If  I  may  venture  a  suggestion  myself,  I  would 
attribute  the  phenomenon  to  dialectic  influence 
as  seen  in  the  Roman  d’Aquin  (trante,  talant, 
plants,  antrer,  prandre,  tandre,  sanglant)  and 
elsewhere,  where  the  e  of  the  syllable  ens,  en, 
ente,  ent,  has  become  a  ;  as  laians  (laiens)  pre- 
sant,  oriant,  chasemant,  povremant,  and  the 
numerals  in  a«/^(quarante,  cinquante,  soixante, 
septante,  octante,  nonante)  which  must  have 
passed  through  ente  in  becoming  ante.  What¬ 
ever  may  have  been  the  cause  of  this  change, 
the  fact  remains  indisputable  :  all  gerunds  and 
present  participles  had  the  same  terminations 
(ant,  ans,  ant)  and  there  are  no  traces  of  ent- 
forms  even  in  the  earliest  monuments  of  the 
language;  for,  what  Wilhelm  Bruno  says  in  a 
dissertation  which  he  presented  to  the  Univer¬ 
sity  of  Rostock,  in  1871,  has  no  bearing  on  the 
question  whatever.  After  stating  that  the 
French  “  adjectif  verbal  ”  comes  undoubtedly 
from  the  coijresponding  Latin  forms  in  ans  and 
ens,  he  continues  :  “  Die  Endung  e7it  ist  von 
vornherein  fast  aufgegeben”  and  then  gives  do- 
lent,  prisent,  omnipote?it,  as  though  they  were 
genuine  French  particii^les,  or  verbal  adjec¬ 
tives.  The  absurdity  of  this  procedure  is  patent 
on  the  very  face  of  it.  In  the  case  of  the  last 
two,  there  were  no  verbs  on  which  to  form 
them  ;  while  doler  gave  dolant  as  its  participle. 
He  has  made  the  mistake  of  confounding 
w'ords  taken  directly  from  the  Latin  with  the 
cognate  forms  founded  on  French  models.  It 
seems  to  me  it  would  be  as  reasonable  to  call 
dolent,  omnipotent,  obedient  particijjles  in 
English. 

Quite  a  number  of  these  Latin  participles 
came  into  French  at  an  early  date,  and  a  few 
have  been  added  from  time  to  time  (the  six¬ 
teenth  century  was  especially  prolific  in  their 
introduction),  but  they  have  preserved  in  the 
majority  of  cases  their  distinctive  Latin  char¬ 
acteristics  as  far  as  form  is  concerned,  while 
the  French  participles  have  all  along  coexisted 
side  by  side  with  them.  The  following  partial 
list  will  make  |)lain  my  meaning; 


FRENCH.  LATIN. 


fatiguanc. 

fatigant. 

vaquant . 

vacant. 

excellant. 

excellent. 

intriguant. 

intrigant. 

pr^sidant . 

president. 

residant. 

resident. 

affluant. 

affluent. 

differant . 

different. 

^quivalant. 

Equivalent 

influant. 

influent. 

n^gligeant. 

negligent. 

Having  discussed  the  etymological  phases, 
something  should  now  be  said  about  the  ap¬ 
parently  interminable  dispute  in  which  French 
grammarians  have  indulged  regarding  the 
terminology  to  be  employed  in  speaking  of 
the  several  syntactical  functions  discharged  by 
these  verbal  forms  in  ant. 

The  most  common  designation  found  in  the 
grammars  is  present  participle;  but  this  ap¬ 
pellation  seeming  too  general  to  express  all 
the  offices  performed  by  these  words,  gram¬ 
marians  began  quite  early  to  employ  other 
names,  such  as,  adjectif  verbal,  gerondif,  &c.; 
but  unfortunately  they  have  not  united  on  any 
term,  or  set  of  terms,  to  be  used.  The 
Academy  thinks  girondif  a  misnomer  as  ap¬ 
plied  to  French  syntax.  “Gerondif,”  it  says, 
se  dit  abusivement,  dans  notre  langue,  du 
participe  actif,  pr^cdd^  de  la  proposition  e7i, 
exprimOe  ou  sousentendue.”  Girault-Duvi- 
vier  and  Bescherelle  distinguish  between  ad¬ 
jectif  verbal,  participe  prise^it  and  glrotidif, 
according  to  their  respective  syntactical  rela¬ 
tions  ;  while  Diez  (Grammatik  III.  pp.  256- 
262)  terms  the  inflected  form  participuan,  the 
uninflected,  gerundium.  Matzner,  on  the  other 
hand,  differs  a  little  from  all  these  in  his 
nomenclature:  “SeineForm,”  he  says,  “worin 
sich  die  lateinischen  Formen  auf  ans,  ens  und 
andinn,  endum  verschmolzen  finden,  erscheint 
im  Satze  theils  unveranderlich  als  gerundiv- 
isches  participium,  theils  als  reines  Verbal- 
adjectif,  welches  fahig  ist  eine  Feminin-  und 
Plural- form  anzunehmen.” 

This  diversity  of  terminology  is  not  of  recent 
date ;  it  began  with  the  first  grammarians  and 
sprang  out  of  the  frequent  confounding  of  the 
two  parts  of  speech  by  the  early  wTiters,  ow¬ 
ing  to  the  similarity  of  form  and  signification. 
Instance  the  following,  where,  after  verbs  of 


6 


The  Geruiidial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


motion,  the  verbal  ought  to  appear  unchanged, 
as  in  the  first  example  : 

Autresi  m’en  irai,  ce  crei. 

Cum  jeo  ving,  tut  murant  de  sei. 

(Marie  de  France,  B.  238.  8). 

Au  terme  vient  joians  et  li^s. 

(Flore  et  Blanceflor). 

E  ele  descirad  sa  gunele  et  jetad  puldre  sur 
son  chief . si  s’en  alad  criante  e  plurante. 

(Livre  des  Rois). 

The  same  cause  brought  about  a  like  con¬ 
fusion  in  Proven5al : 

Als  faitz  conoicheras  las  gens, 

Que  las  paraulas  van  mentens. 

(Le  Libre  de  Seneqiia). 

E  la  metia  enans  a  son  poder  ab  sas  cansors 
e  en  comtans. 

(Bib.  derTroub.  XLII). 

Antoine  Oudin,  tutor  in  Italian  of  Louis  XIV, 
observing  the  divergence  of  opinion  among 
French  grammarians  relative  to  the  variability 
or  non-variability  of  the  verbals  in  ant,  pro¬ 
posed  in  the  first  edition  of  his  grammar, which 
appeared  in  1632,  to  treat  them  as  “gerondifs,’ 
whenever  they  retained  their  full  verbal  force. 
In  this  case  they  should  remain  uninflected. 
This  he  sets  forth  in  these  words : 

Ce  participe,  exprimant  le  gerondif,  ne  se 
doit  point  obliger  a  suivre  ny  le  genre  ny  le 
nombre  du  substantif  antecedant :  verbi  gratia : 
la  terre  produisant  des  fruits,  et  non  pas  la 
terre  produisante,  etc.;  les  roys  asseurent  leurs 
estats,  traitt.ant  doucement  leurs  subjects,  et 
non  pas  :  traittans  doucement,  etc.;  les  femmes 
se  fardant  gastent  leurs  visages  et  jamais  se 
fardans,  etc.  Mais  s’il  est  pur  participe  relatif 
(c’est-a-dire  adjectif  verbal)  ilfautqu’il  suive  le 
genre  et  le  nombre  dudit  antecedant,  comme 
les  roys  cherissants,  les  subjects  obeyssans, 
les  femmes  attrayantes ;  car  alors  il  prend  la 
nature  d’adjectif. . Je  trouve  une  excep¬ 

tion  aux  temps  compos^z  du  participe  estant, 
car  on  dit :  ces  hommes  estans  entrez,  mais  ce 
n’est  que  pour  le  masculin,  car  on  ne  diroit 
pas  ;  ces  femmes  estans  entries.” 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  Vaugelas,  whose 
“Remarques  sur  la  langue  fran^oise  ”  came 
out  fifteen  years  after  the  publication  of  Oudin’s 
grammar,  attempts  to  compound  with  the 
matter.  After  stating  that  it  would  be  “bar- 


bare  et  ridicule”  to  say:  je  les  ai  trouvdes 
ayantes  le  verre  a  la  main  and  that  ayans  le 
verre  a  la  main  would  not  be  more  correct,  he 
adds  :  il  faut  done  necessairement  avoir  recours 
au  gerondif  quand  il  s’agit  du  feminin,  soit  au 
singulier,  soit  au  pluriel,  et  dire  en  I’exemple 
que  nous  avons  propose :  je  les  ai  trouvdes 
ayant  le  verre  it  la  main.”  And  again  :  “  Don- 
nons  un  exemple  des  participes  actifs  aux  au- 
tres  verbes :  je  les  ai  trouv^es  beuvantes  et 
mangeantes.  Qui  a  jamais  oiiy  parler  comme 
cela  ?  11  faut  dire  :  je  les  ai  trouvdes  beuvant  et 

mangeant,  au  gerondif . Il  y  en  a  pour- 

tant  qui  soustiennent  que  ce  participe  actif 
feminin  ne  doit  pas  estre  banny  de  nostre  lan¬ 
gue,  quoy  que  neanmoins  ils  demeurent  d ’ac¬ 
cord  que  I’usage  en  est  tres-rare  et  que  le  ge¬ 
rondif  mis  en  sa  place  sera  meilleur  sans  com- 
paraison.”  He  seems,  however,  not  to  have 
had  a  clear  conscience  after  having  delivered 
himself  of  these  words,  for  he  adds  further  :  au 
moins,  il  est  bien  certain  c\\\' estant  participe 
n’a  pas  de  feminin  et  que  jamais  on  n’a  dit 
estante  non  plus  qu’  ayante,  au  feminin. 

In  1660,  the  Port-Royalist  grammarians, 
Arnauld  and  Lancelot,  following  the  example 
of  Oudin  and  Vaugelas,  declared  that  the 
present  participle  was  never  anything  else 
but  a  “gerondif;”  that  it  was  consequently 
not  susceptible  of  either  gender  or  number 
and  ought  not  to  be  declined.  “Je  dis  ejue 
nos  deux  participes  aimant  et  aimd,  en  tant 
qu’ils  ont  le  m^me  rdgime  que  le  verbe, 
sont  plutdt  des  gdrondifs  que  des  participes  ; 
car  M.  Vaugelas  a  d^ja  remarqud  que  le 
participe  en  ant,  lorsqu’  il  a  le  rdgime  du 
verbe,  n’a  point  de  fdminin  et  qu’on  ne  dit 
point  par  exemple:  ‘j’ai  vu  une  femme  lis- 
ante  I’Ecriture,  mais  lisant  I’Ecriture.’  One 
si  on  le  met  quelquesfois  au  pluriel:  ‘j’ai  vu 
des  hommes  lisants  I’Ecriture,’  je  crois  que 
cela  est  venu  d’une  faute  dont  on  ne  s’est  pas 
apergu,  a  cause  que  le  son  de  lisant  et  de  li¬ 
sants  est  presque  toujours  le  m^me,  le  tm  le  ^ 
ne  se  pronongant  point  d’ordinaire.” 

This  principle  first  enunciated  by  Oudin  was 
founded  in  reason  and  was  theoretically  cor¬ 
rect  ;  and  had  he  gone  back  to  the  earliest 
writers,  he  would  have  found  it  pretty  well 
substantiated  and  obtained  better  results  than 
he  did,  as  far  as  the  history  of  the  language 


The  Gerimdial  Construction  hi  the  Romanic  Languages. 


was  concerned.  As  it  was,  his  statement  was 
not  justified  by  the  facts  as  he  found  them  at 
his  time  ;  and  there  is  little  doubt  but  that  he 
was  led  to  make  it  by  the  beautiful  system  of 
the  Italian  gerund  and  participle,  whose  clear¬ 
ness  is  such  that  it  would  not  unlikely  have  in¬ 
duced  him  to  wish  to  see  it  substituted  for  the 
chaotic  condition  of  the  analogous  construc¬ 
tion  in  his  mother-tongue.  But  as  has  been 
said,  the  usage  of  his  time  only  partially  legi¬ 
timated  the  principle  he  claimed  to  be  estab¬ 
lished.  For  from  the  beginning  of  the  four¬ 
teenth  century  the  feminine  e  and  fle.xional  s 
began  to  invade  the  province  of  the  gerund. f 

En  la  splendur  de  la  tue  fuildrante  hanste. 

(Habakkuk,  III.  ti.  (XI.  century) 

E  com  pesante  destinee. 

(Kenoit  de  Sainte  More.  XII.  century) 
La  chiere  blanche  plus  que  n'est  flour  de  lis 
Et  revelante  comme  rose  de  pris. 

(Roman  d’Aquin,  1.  310.  XII.  century.) 
L’espee  a  ^ainte  tranchante  a  son  coste. 

(Ditto  1.  1202.) 

Parmi  le  cors  li  vait  bruiante, 

De  I’autre  part  fiert  en  la  lande.J 

(Gormuud  et  Isembard,  1.  75,  XIII.  cent.) 

The  confusion  having  been  once  made,  it 
went  on  increasing  until  1679,  when  the  Acade¬ 
my  issued  its  famous  decree:  “La  regie  est 
faite,  on  ne  d^clinera  pas  les  participes  actifs.” 

The  reason  which  the  members  of  that 
august  body  assigned  for  this  decision,  was  that 
they  were  but  following  the  example  “  de  nos 
anciens,  pour  lesquels  nous  devoirs  avoir  beau- 
coup  de  consideration ;  car  ils  ont  toujours 
pose  pour  regie  certaine  que  les  verbes  actifs 
n’ont  pas  de  vrais  participes  mais  seulement 
des  gerondifs,  qui  tiennent  lieu  de  participes, 
gardant  le  regime  de  leurs  verbes  et  se  joi- 
gnant  avec  les  noms  masculins  et  feminins 
singuliers  et  pluriels,  sans  etre  dedinables  et 
sans  etre  d’aucun  genre,  par  exemirle;  riromme 
craignant  Dieu;  les  honrmes  craignant  Dieu  ; 
la  femme  craignant  Dieu  ;  les  femnres  craign¬ 
ant  Dieu.” 

This  seems  a  little  like  inspiration,  unless 

t  Sporadic  instances  of  the  feminine  e  with  the  participle 
made  their  appearance  in  the  preceding  centuries. 

I  In  this  last  example  the  e  has  also  been  added  to  the  gerund, 
similarly  to  a  case  already  noticed.  The  addition  of  this 
feminine  e  must  have  acted  as  a  potent  cause  in  helping  to 
confound  the  two  parts  of  speech,  already  no  longer  distin¬ 
guishable  by  their  form. 


we  are  to  take  the  words  nos  anciens  and  tou¬ 
jours  as  very  limited  in  meaning  and  applica¬ 
tion  ;  for  we  have  no  reasons  to  believe  that 
they  had  any  very  definite  knowledge  of  Old 
French  syntax.  But  what  they  did,  although 
often  contravened  by  practice,  was  in  the  main 
right ;  for  they  had  the  analogy  of  all  the  other 
Romance  languages  on  their  side.  When  we 
find  the  Italian,  Spanish,  Portuguese  and  Wal- 
lachian  using  the  gerund  in  certain  construc¬ 
tions  such  as : 

E  in  umil  seggio,  e  in  un  vestire  schietto 
Fra’  suoi  duel  sedendo  il  ritrovaro. 

(Tasso,  Gerus.  Lib.  IL  6o). 

Llegd  il  cuadrillero,  y  como  los  halld  ha- 
blando  en  tan  sosegada  conversacio  quedd 
suspense. 

(Don  Quijote,  Part  I.  ch.  XVII). 

E  tornando,  achou-os  outra  vez  dormindo. 

(Marco,  XIV.  40). 

Si  a  venitii,  si  i-S  gasith  dormindtt. 

(March,  XIV.  37); 

that  is,  with  the  verb  to  find,  there  seems  to  be 
no  plausible  ground  for  regarding  the  French 
and  Provencal  construction  as  of  different 
origin.  Compare  with  the  above  the  following  : 

Sor  une  grant  coute  vermoille 
Troverent  la  dame  seant. 

(Chevalier  au  Lyon,  B.  i6o.  i8). 

E  qand  venc  un  dia,  Raimons  del  Castel 
Rosillon  trobet  passan  Guillem  de  Cabestaing. 

(Bib.  der  Troub.  IX). 

As  far  as  possible  an  effort  will  be  made  in 
the  following  pages  to  treat  the  subject  from 
this  standpoint — namely  to  show  by  citations 
from  the  co-related  languages  what  construc¬ 
tions  ought  to  be  considered  gerundial,  when 
speaking  of  French  and  Provencal. 

This  method  of  treatment  has  not  been,  as 
far  as  I  know,  proposed  and  no  doubt  will  be 
objected  to  by  some,  especially  by  those  who 
are  not  willing  to  admit  the  term  “gerund”  in 
P'rench  grammar,  but  who  maintain  that,  in¬ 
flected  or  uninllected,  the  verbal  form  ant  is 
nothing  but  a  participle.  Little  will  be  gained 
by  it,  I  admit,  as  we  can  not  now  make  the 
language  over ;  but  the  distinction  between 
gerund  and  jiarticiple  once  accepted,  we  see 
why  the  early  authors  considered  themselves 
at  liberty  to  add  the  s  (z)  or  not.  As  has  been 
said,  they  were  probably  not  aware  that  the 
words  in  ant  issued  from  more  than  one  source 


8 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


— nay,  possibly  did  not  think  of  the  subject  at 
all,  but  they  knew  that  custom  had  sanctioned 
both  the  use  and  the  omission  of  the  sibilant. 

I  find  little  relevancy  in  wliat  has  been  so 
much  insisted  on  with  reference  to  the  exigen¬ 
cies  of  the  rime  causing  the  violation  of  the 
rule  ;  for  while  it  is  true  that  the  so-called  rule 
for  the  participle  is  frequently  violated  in  the 
rimes,  we  can  not  lay  much  stress  on  this  fact, 
as  the  non-sibilated  forms  are  met  too  often 
out  of  rime  and  in  prose,  to  be  regarded  as 
mere  orthographical  blunders.  Moreover,  it 
is  not  uncommon  to  find  the  sibilant  in  the 
rimes  where  it  is  not  called  for  and  vice  versa. 
And  again,  the  argument  would  only  hold 
good,  in  any  case,  for  pure  rime  ;  because  the 
assonances  did  not  depend  on  the  consonants, 
but  on  the  vowel-element  of  the  final  strong 
syllable.  Take  the  following  passage  from 
Guillaume  d’Orange,  a  clear  specimen  of  rime  : 

Li  cuens  Guillaumes  fu  iriez  et  dolanz, 

Vivien  vil  qui  gisoit  to  sanglanz, 

Plus  soef  flere  que  basme  ne  pimens. 

Sor  sa  poitrine  tenoit  ses  mains  croisant ; 

Li  sans  li  ist  par  ambedeus  les  flans. 

Par  mi  le  cors  ot  quinze  plaies  granz, 

De  la  menor  fust  mort  uns  amiranz. 

*Ni^s  Vivien/  dit  Guillaume  li  frans, 

'Mar  fu  VO  cors  qui  tant  par  iert  vaillant. 

And  another  from  the  Chanson  de  Roland, 
an  assonated  poem  : 

De  mun  osberc  en  sunt  remput  li  pan ; 

Plaies  ai  tantes  es  costez  e  es  flancs 
De  tutes  parz  en  salt  fors  li  clers  sancs; 

Trestut  le  cors  m’en  vait  afiebliant : 

Sempres  murrai,  par  le  mien  esciant. 

Je  suis  vostre  hum  e  vus  tien  ^  guarant; 

Ne  me  blasmez,  se  je  m'en  vai  fuiant. 

Innumerable  instances  might  be  cited  out  of 
rime  and  in  prose  ;  a  few  only  are  given  ; 

II  est  issus  del  bos,  vint  el  lairis, 

Galopant  vait  vers  aus  tou  le  cemin. 

(Aiol  et  Mirabel) . 

Done  vint  edrant  dreitement  ^  la  mer. 

Eist  de  la  neif  e  vait  edrant  k  Rome. 

(St.  Alexis) . 

Le  cheval  brochet,  si  vient  poignant  vers  lui. 

(Ch.  dc  Roland). 

Si  home  ocit  alter  e  il  seit  cunuissant,  &c. 

(Lois  de  Guillaume  le  Conq.). 

La  voz  del  segnur  frainanz  les  cedres — 

La  voiz  del  segnur  entretren^ant  la  flamme. 

(Psalm  XXIX.). 


Trestot  a  pi<^,  defendant  son  parti. 

(Garin  le  Loherain), 

Plorant  li  bese  le  piz  et  la  forcele. 

(Guil.  d’Orange). 

Je  vois  querant  tun  pru,  t’honur. 

(Myst^re  d’Adam). 

Mult  par  lu  vait  criant  merci. 

(Tristan). 

Qui  tostens  va  sivant  amor. 

(Benoit  de  Sainte  More). 

Quant  je  ving  ^a  corrant  a  toi. 

(Ditto). 

Parlant  les  a  issi  menez  au  cors. 

(Romania  VIIL  177). 

Dolanz  m’en  part. 

(Romances,  thirteenth  century). 

Vers  Castres  s’en  repairet  joians  et  esbaudis. 

(Le  Siege  de  Castres  (Rom.  Stud.  I.  591). 

Et  en  tel  estat  fesoient  le  silence  attendans 
le  jourciui  vint  tantost. 

(Jehan  Froissart). 

C’est  une  cit^  de  la  marine  qui  siet  en  la 
terre  de  Fenice  et  est  obeissant  ^  la  citd  de 
Sur. 

(Tr.  de  Guil.  de  Tyr.). 

....  un  povres  hons  ....  fuioit  mont  criant 
devans  un  ors.  (Ditto). 

Je  servirai  desirans  toute  voie. 

(Guiot  de  Provins). 

E  la  metia  enans  a  son  poder  ab  sas  cansos 
e  en  comtans.  (Bib.  der  Troub.). 

Non  pose  mudar,  bels  amics,  qu’en  chan- 
tanz,  &c.  (Ugo  Catola). 

The  above  quotations,  which  might  be  in¬ 
creased  to  any  number,  will  suffice  to  show 
that  verbals  in  a^it  might  remain  unchanged 
or  take  the  sibilated  forms  ans,  anz.  I  do  not 
believe  this  is  attributable  to  a  mere  whim  or 
accident.  There  must  have  been  a  reason 
for  it. 

For  the  sake  of  convenience  the  same  termin¬ 
ology,  as  that  of  Diez,  had  been  determined 
upon,  even  before  consulting  him  on  the  sub¬ 
ject;  and  the  writer  was  glad  to  have  his 
resolution  sanctioned  by  such  •  an  authority. 
But  before  proceeding  to  the  syntax,  another 
point  must  be  mentioned,  which  comes  prop¬ 
erly  under  this  heading  ;  that  is,  the  compound 
forms  of  the  gerund. 

Having  created  this  special  construction 
from  the  simple  gerund  (for  it  differs  in  so 
many  ways  from  the  Latin,  that  it  may  almost 


9 


The  Gertindial  Constructio7i  in  the  Romaiiic  Languages. 


be  said  to  be  a  new  creation),  the  Romanic 
languages  went  further  and  constructed  a  past 
tense  as  well  as  a  passive  voice,  by  means  of 
the  auxiliary  verbs  habere  and  essere :  Fr. 
ayant  ahni,  eta^it  aiini,  ayant  H&  aittii;  It. 
avendo  a^nato,  essetido  amato,  essendo  stato 
amato;  Sp.  habiendo  amado,  sie^ido  amado, 
habiendo  sido  a^nado;  Port,  tendo  [havetido) 
amado,  seiido  amado,  te?ido  sido  amado. 

In  this  way  they  remedied  what  we  feel  to 
be  a  weakness  in  the  parent  speech,  which 
had  no  perfect  active  participle,  and  not  having, 
strictly  speaking,  any  auxiliary  verbs,  was 
obliged  to  make  the  passive  participle  serve 
for  both  present  and  past.  The  Roman  could 
not  literally  say :  Caesar  having  crossed  the 
bridge  attacked  the  enemy,  but :  Caesar,  the 
bridge  crossed,  attacked  enemy.  French, 
C^sar  ayant  pass6  le  pont  attaqua  I’ennemi, 
or  retaining  the  Latin  construction :  Cfear,  le 
pont  pass4,  attaqua  I’ennemi,  or  even;  C&ar 
passant  le  pont  attaqua  I’ennemi ;  It.  Cesare 
avendo  passato  il  ponte  attaccb  I’inimico,  or  : 
Cesare,  passato  il  ponte,  attacco,  &c.,  or: 
Cesare  passando  il  ponte  attaccb  I’inimico. 
And  so  in  the  other  languages,  the  Wallachian 
excepted,  which  seems  to  make  the  simple 
forms  serve  for  all  moods  and  tenses.  I  say 
this  with  some  hesitancy,  basing  my  belief 
on  the  silence  of  Diez,  Barcianti,  Mircesco  and 
others  and  on  my  own  observation,  which,  it 
is  true,  is  not  very  great  in  Wallachian  litera¬ 
ture.  A  number  of  parallel  passages  in  the 
Bible  show  that,  where  the  most  of  the  other 
languages  use  the  compound  tense  or  some 
other  equivalent,  the  Wallachian  renders  the 
same  by  the  simple  gerund.  At  any  rate  my 
experience  is  sufficiently  extensive  to  justify 
me  in  asserting  that  the  compound,  if  it  occurs 
at  all,  is  very  exceptional. 

We  now  come  to  the  Syntax,  which  will  be 
treated  under  two  rubrics :  ist.  The  Gerund 
without  a  bt^eposition,  and  2d,  The  Gerund 
with  a  preposition. 

The  Gerund  without  a  Preposition. 

The  most  striking  peculiarity  of  the  gerun- 
dial  construction  in  the  early  languages,  es¬ 
pecially  those  of  France,  is  its  infrequency  as 
compared  with  modern  usage.  It  is  more 
common  in  verse  than  in  prose,  and  this  is  ex¬ 


plained  by  the  fact,  that  when  a  writer  starts  a 
“leash”  (laisse)  whose  assonance  or  rime 
requires  ant,  e7it,  (atts,  etis)  terminations,  he  is 
often  driven  to  seek  the  construction  and  the 
use  of  words  which  will  give  him  his  rime  or 
assonance.  Could  we  call  up  the  shades  of 
the  old  poets  and  question  them  on  the 
subject  of  verse-making,  many  of  them  would 
have  to  make  the  same  confession  in  this 
respect  as  Baltasar  del  Alcazar  makes  of  the 
consonants  : 


Porque  si  in  verso  refiero 
Mis  cosas  mas  importantes, 
Me  fuerzan  los  consonantes 
A  decir  lo  que  no  quiero. 


The  freer  use  of  the  infinitive  during  the  first 
stages  of  the  growth  of  these  languages  doubt¬ 
less  exerted  a  great  influence  in  preventing 
the  rapid  development  of  the  gerundial  con¬ 
struction,  which  at  the  present  time  has  as¬ 
sumed  such  extensive  proportions  owing  to 
the  general  discarding  of  the  infinitive  as  a 
kind  of  verbal  noun. 

The  following  French  and  Provencal  ex¬ 
amples,  selected  as  being  the  most  note¬ 
worthy  in  this  regard,  will  make  plain  the 
difference  as  compared  with  modern  usage. 


Et  le  fist  mult  bien  k  Tenz  metre  (modern  :  en 
les  repoussant)  si  que  grant  pris  Ten  dona 
Ton. 

Ville-Hardouin. 

Si  unt  le  clerc  truvt?  par  querre  e  demander 
Prechant  e  batizant,  ke  (^o  fu  sun  mester. 

Math.  Paris,  Vie  de  S.  Auban,  1291. 
Mais  hardis  doit  estre  en  servir. 

Jehan  de  Cond^,  B.  396,3. 
Il  faisait  tel  noise  au  venir  (mod.  en  venant) 
que  il  sembloit  que  ce  fust  la  foudre  dou  ciel. 
Joinville,  Hist,  de  S.  Louis,  ch.  XLIII. 
Et  y  mist  Pon  au  paiement  faire  le  samedi. 

Ditto,  LXXV. 

Car  il  avait  paour  que  il  ne  brisast  le  col  au 
tourner. 

Ditto,  Cl . 

Je  li  demandai  comment  ce  estait  que  il  ne 
metoit  consoil  en  li  garantir  ne  par  noer. 

Ditto,  CXXIX, 

E  la  amava  e  deleitava  se  en  parlar  de  lieis. 

Bib.  dcr  Troub.  XXXV. 


L’un  an  els  fundemens  lur  cura, 

Li  autre  en  bastir  la  mura 
El  altre  en  far  lo  mortier. 

Life  of  St.  Enimia. 


Aisi  se  van  ferir  (might  be  :  feren)  cum  cascas 
venc. 


10 


The  Gerimdial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


No  lor  valo  escut  par  un  besenc. 

G.  de  Rossilho,  2180. 
Car  ab  cor  franc  tan  m’afranc  en  amar. 

Anonym.  Ballad. 


Contrast  the  two  following  examples,  in 
which  infinitive  and  gerund  are  equivalents  : 


Per  la  vila  s’en  van  cridan. 

Die  Kindheit  Jesu 
(B's  Denkm'  ler,  XXXIX). 


E  totz  los  juzieus  van  cridar. 


Ditto. 


That  the  language  has  lost  much  in  force 
and  ease  of  expression  by  abandoning  this 
free  use  of  the  infinitives  for  other  construc¬ 
tions  can  not  be  questioned;  as  the  substitutes, 
which  have  been  mostly  supplied  by  the  ger¬ 
und,  are  not  as  flexible  for  purposes  of 
thought.  One  can  not  but  feel  this  to  be  one 
of  the  lost  beauties  of  the  language  ;  and  the 
loss  becomes  more  apparent,  when  we  turn  to 
the  Italian,  Spanish  etc.,  in  which  thegerund- 
ial  and  infinitive  constructions  have  grown 
side  by  side  with  each  other  and  give  to  these 
languages  a  variety  of  expression  unattainable 
in  French.  The  Italian  :  lo  scender  questa 
roccia;  al  passar  questa  valle;  gli  costa  caro 
questo  diffamare  altrui :  Spanish  ;  un  secreto 
desearos ;  el  huir  la  ocasion ;  el  comunicar 
los  males ;  cair  fu6  mal  castigado  en  non 
temer  a  Dios  ;  Prov.:  al  camp  levar,  etc.,  had 
their  analogy  in  :  au  doner  le  don,  au  passer 
la  porte,  a  un  tertre  monter,  au  prendre  le 
cong4,  en  cel  tirer— expressions  which  even 
Montaigne  could  imitate  (il  se  penoient  du 
tenir  le  chastel,  and  :  le  paistre  I’erbe  est 
salutaire  au  jeune  cheval),  but  which  have 
now  totally  disappeared  from  the  language. 

One  of  the  earliest  and  very  common  con¬ 
structions  of  the  gerund  is  effected  by  its  con¬ 
junction  with  the  verb  alter.  When  so  used, 
alter  may  perform  the  part  of  a  simple  aux¬ 
iliary  or  copula  and  either  expresses  progres¬ 
sive  or  iterative  action,  or  these  ideas  may  be 
altogether  absent  and  the  action  of  the  princi¬ 
pal  verb  does  not  seem  to  be  appreciably 
modified  by  the  addition  of  alter.  In  other 
cases  alter  retains  in  part  or  wholly  its 
motional  signification  and  as  so  used  may  be 
replaced  by  almost  any  verb  expressing 
motion.  These  two  categories  are  not  always 
clearly  defined,  certain  cases  being  susceptible 


of  either  interpretation.  As  instances  of  alter 
as  copula  only  and  in  which  the  fundamental 
meaning  is  completely  subordinated  to  the 
principal  verb,  may  be  cited  ; 

1.  E  tei  tuz  jurs  apele,  “  K’alez  vu.sdemandant.” 

Vie  de  Seint  Auban,  818. 

2.  As  eschies  e  as  tables  se  vunt  esbaneiant. 

Voyage  de  Charlemagne,  270. 

3.  Seignurs  baruns,  n’en  alez  mespensant. 

Pur  Deu  vus  pri  que  ne  seiez  fuiant. 

Ch.  de  Roland,  1472. 

4.  Kar  chevalchiez.  Pur  qu’alez  arestant  ? 

Ditto,  1783. 

5.  De  grant  dolour  se  va  ly  ber  pasmant. 

Roman  d'Aquin,  1601. 

6.  Pour  Pamour  Ddnels  alez  espargnant. 

Ditto,  1633. 

7.  Voire  moult  plus,  ce  trovon  nous  lesant 
Dedans  I'ystoire  qui  point  ne  va  mentant. 

Ditto,  1666. 

8.  Quant  li  rois  I’entendi,  de  coer  va  souspirant. 

Berte  aus  Grans  Pids,  2542. 

9.  La  paiz  alout  cherchant,  les  querre  metre  a  fin. 

Roman  de  Rou,  1542. 

10.  Se  li  reis  li  alout  de  nule  rien  falsant. 

Ditto,  2544. 

11.  Fortment  lo  vant  il  acusand. 

La  soa  mort  mult  demandant. 

La  Passion,  B.  16,  6-7. 

12.  Or  pri  a  tous  les  vrais  amans 
Ceste  chanson  voisent  chantant. 

13.  Ainz  y  mouron  que  sa'ion  recreant, 

Ne  que  de  riens  nous  augeon  fouyant. 

Roman  d’Aquin,  1635. 

14.  Li  Tur  vindrent  assaillir  sa  gent  qui  tout 

de  gr^  s'aloient  remanant. 

Trans,  de  Gull,  de  Tyr,  Liv.  VII, 

15.  D’ores  en  autres  va  sa  colpe  rendant 
A  sa  main  destre  aloit  son  piz  batant. 

Guil.  d’Orange,  B.  65,  38. 

16.  (Ja  et  1^  espandu  par  le  chemin  et  li  plus 

d’eus  aloient  dormant. 

Tr.  de  Guil.  de  Tyr,  Liv.  XII. 

All  of  these  examples  either  show  plainly 
of  themselves,  or  it  may  be  gathered  from 
the  context,  that  the  idea  of  actual  motion  in 
alter  is  totally  wanting,  as  much  so  as  it  would 
be  in  “go,”  if  we  should  translate  example  lo 
by  the  popular  construction  :  if  the  king 
should  go  to  deceiving  him  in  any  way. 

,  In  Nos.  I,  3,  4,  6,  10,  the  simple  verbs  : 
demandez,  mespensez,  arestez,  espargnez, 
falsout,  could  be  substituted  without  in  any 
way  modifying  the  thought.  It  is  quite  evi¬ 
dent  that  alez,  in  the  first  line  of  No.  3,  is  the 


The  Gerundial  Construction 


exact  functional  equivalent  of  seiez  in  the 
second  line.  We  learn  from  the  context  of 
No.  2  that  Charlemagne  found  the  knights 
s'eant\  hence  “se  vunt  esbaneiant  ”  means, 
they  are  in  the  act  of  enjoying  themselves — 
progressive  or  continuative  action.  In  5  and 
8  alter  gives  to  the  principal  verb  the  notion 
of  incipiency  as  well  as  progression  ;  while 
“  point  ne  va  mentant,”  in  No.  8,  may  imply 
that  history  is  not  hi  the  habit  of  lying.  In  ii 
and  12  it  is  possibly  repetitive.  How  com¬ 
pletely  the  idea  of  real  motion  could  be  over¬ 
looked  may  be  learned  from  the  last  three 
examples  (14,  15,  16). 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  old  Johan 
Fischart  uses  the  German  in  a  similar 

manner,  in  his  translation  of  Rabelais,  head¬ 
ing  of  chapter  4 : 

Wie  Gurgelmiltsam,  als  sie  mit  dem  kind- 
lein  Gurgellantule  schwanger  gieng,  ein 
grossen  wust  kutteln  frass  und  davon  genas. 
The  famous  boast  of  Juno,  in  Virgil,  offers  a 
like  instance  of  the  copulative  use  of  a  verb 
of  motion  : 

Ast  ego,  quae  Divum  incedo,  Jovisque 
Et  soror  et  conjux. 

In  English  it  is  a  common  idiom  to  say  :  to  go 
mad,  blind,  etc. ;  and  we  in  the  Southern 
States  are  familiar  with  the  negro  lingo  :  done 
gone  and  kilt  him=has  killed  him  ;  but  I  was 
hardly  prepared,  when  some  months  ago  I 
was  speaking  of  the  death  of  a  favorite  dog, 
to  have  put  to  me,  by  a  Hoosier  acquaintance, 
the  query  :  when  did  he  go  dead?  or  to  find  a 
writer  in  The  Nation  of  August  4,  1887,  (p.  89) 
speaking  of  somebody’s  horse  going  dead 
lame. 

But  returning  to  alter  we  see  that,  used  as  a 
simple  copula,  it  may  shade  off  into  a  number 
of  fine  distinctions,  in  which  actual  motion  is 
not  necessarily  implied.  At  the  present  day 
many  of  these  features  of  alter  are  supplied 
by  other  constructions.  Remnants  of  some  of 
its  functions  are  seen  in  : 

L'entreprise  suffit  ^  prouver  que  T^tude  du 
fran^ais  va  toujours  prenant  plus  d’im- 
portance  en  Allemagne. 

Romania,  IX.  i66. 

Et  des  bouches  au  loin  s'ouvrent  avidement, 

A  ces  atomes  fous  que  la  nuit  va  semant. 

Hugo,  L'Ane. 


hi  the  Romanic  Languages. 


Vous  n’allez  frtquaiitant  que  spadassins 
infames. 

Ditto,  Ruy  Bias,  I.  2. 

expressions,  in  which  the  combination  of  the 
two  verbs  serves  to  indicate  progression, 
continuance  or  habit,  but  only  weakly  or  not 
at  all  that  of  motion.  In  translating  the  first 
sentence  into  English  we  should  say  :  is  daily 
becoming  more  important ;  in  rendering  the 
second,  to  be  exact,  we  should  probably  have 
to  make  va  subordinate  to  semant — sows  as  it 
goes  ;  while  the  third  is  :  you  habitually  asso¬ 
ciate  with,  etc. 

A  rather  peculiar  combination  of  venir  and 
aller  is  found  in  the  Roman  d’Alexandre  (B. 

177.5): 

Alexandres  commande  Tost  amener  avant, 

Quar  el  bos  as  puceles  vint  aler  deduisant. 

In  the  formation  of  the  compound  tenses  of 
aller  va  the  senses  above  illustrated,  avoir  is 
generally,  though  not  always,  employed  : 

Et  orent  tant  aid  sofrant  que  il  virent  la  Rouse 
A  mains  de  demie  lieue. 

Ville-Hardouin,  Ch.  94. 

Tant  est  alez  Tiebalt  son  orguil  demenant. 

Roman  de  Rou,  4089. 

£  com  lo  reis  Fclips  avia  anat  plaideian 
sobre  la  riba  de  laiga. 

Bil.  der  Troub.  XXVI. 

When  lire  is  used,  the  verb  more  common¬ 
ly  retains  its  fundamental  meaning  of  motion : 

One  ne  Tot  tel  Aiquin  ly  amirez, 

Qui  par  la  mer  fuyant  s’en  est  alez. 

Roman  d’Aquin,  2517, 

Partoutes  terres  est  alez  cunquerant. 

Ch.  de  Roland,  553. 

Desus  un  pin  i  est  alez  curant. 

Ditto,  2363. 

It  is  to  be  expected  that  constructions  analo¬ 
gous  to  these  of  aller  should  be  found  with 
verbs  of  motion  in  the  other  languages. 

Ch6  spero  e  vo  sperando 

Che  ancora  deggio  avere 

Allegro  meo  coraggio. 

Federigo  II,  Rei  di  Sicilia. 

Cuando  dellos  se  despide, 

Lagrimas  va  derramando. 

Rom.  del  Cid,  CIX.  (Voegelin). 

Mirabanie  las  mozas  y  andaban  con  los  ojos 
buscandole  el  rostro  que  la  mala  visera  le 
cncubria. 

Don  Quij.  Ch.  II,  pt.  i. 


12 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


Por  las  venas  cuitadas 

La  sangre  su  6gura 

Iba  desconociendo  y  su  natura. 

Garcilasode  la  Vega. 

NSo  soffre  muito  a  gente  generosa 
Andar-lhe  os  cies  os  dentes  mostrando. 

Camoens,  Os  Lus.  I.  88. 

E  vereis  ir  cortando  o  salso  argento 
Os  vossos  Argonautas. 

Ditto,  I.  i8. 

£  non  ai  ges  tel  coratge 
Com  li  fals  drut  an, 

Que  van  galian. 

G.  Faidit,  B.  142,  10. 

Ill  most  of  the  sister  languages,  other  verbs 
of  motion  besides  “go”  are  made  to  perform 
the  office  of  copulas.  In  the  Italian  expres¬ 
sion  :  si  venne  accorgendo,  venne  is  not  only 
a  copula  but  has  also  the  force  of  an  adverb  of 
manner — little  by  little  he  perceived. 

Molti  esempj  potrci  venir  contando. 

Vitt.  Colonna. 

The  Spanish  and  Portuguese  use,  perhaps, 
a  greater  number  of  verbs  of  motion  in  this 
way  than  any  of  the  others.  In  the  former, 
andar,  ir,  venir  are  employed  to  e.xpress  du¬ 
ration  or  gradual  action,  while  caminar,  con- 
tinuar,  seguir  are  confined  to  continued 
action.  So  Portuguese  grammarians  dis¬ 
tinguish  between  andar  and  ir,  the  former 
being  frequentative.  Accordingly  they  say : 
ando  estudando  as  linguas  antigas,  which 
means,  I  am  making  a  continual  and  frequent 
study  of  the  ancient  languages ;  while  :  vou 
convalescendo  would  mean  continuation  in  a 
progressive  sense — I  am  getting  better  every 
day.  The  context  of  the  two  passages  above 
quoted  from  the  Lusiads  seems  to  bear  out 
this  distinction. 

Many  cases  arise  in  which  it  is  not  easy  to 
determine  whether  alter  is  a  copula  or 
whether  its  action  is  coordinate  with  that  of 
the  gerund. 

Li  gatle  qui  estoU  sor  le  tor  les  vit  venir  ct 
ol  qu’il  aloient  de  Nicolete  parlant. 

Aucasin  et  Nicolete,  B.  283,  36. 

Mais  qtiant  ainnm  mendiani. 

dr  vicllroc  vu  trunluiit, 

U  I'apclc  por  airline. 

I'loic  Cl  lilaiu  elior,  76^. 

I*overtadc  va  gridandn 
A  gran  voce  predicando. 

(Jiacopone  da  Todi. 


In  the  first  of  these  it  is  said  that  the  guard 
saw  coming  the  men  whom  Count  Garin  had 
sent  to  look  for  Nicolete  and  heard  that  they 
were  talking,  or  were  talkhtg  as  they  went 
along,  about  Nicolete.  The  other  examples 
are  not  clearer,  even  when  studied  in  con¬ 
nexion  with  the  passages  in  which  they  occur. 

We  next  come  to  a  third  and  very  frequent 
use  of  alter  with  the  gerund,  in  which  motion 
is  clearly  defined.  It  belongs,  in  this  sense, 
then,  to  the  general  category  of  verbs  of 
motion,  which  may  be  accompanied  by  a  ger¬ 
und  whose  action  is  subordinate  to,  or,  at 
most,  coordinate  with,  that  of  the  verb  -of 
motion. 

Alter. 

Sans  Pedre  sols  seguen  lo  val, 

Quar  sua  fin  veder  voldrat. 

Passion  du  Christ,  B.  9.  14. 

A  foe,  a  flamma  vai  ardant 

£t  a  gladies  persccutan. 

Vie  de  S.  Leger,  B.  16.  39. 

Venir, 

Done  vint  edrant  dreitmant  a  la  mer. 

Vie  de  S.  Alexis,  B.  si .  38. 

Monier,  descendre . 

Muntent  et  descendent  chantant  e  esjol 

Li  beiis  angeres  du  ciel . 

Vie  de  Seint  Auban,  X093. 

Passer, 

Passastes  par  Bretiaine  d'orient  venant. 

Ditto,  1127. 

S'adresser , 

I/enfant  ne  quaisse  ne  ne  blece, 

Fuiant  vers  un  chemin  s'adrece. 

Crestien  de  Troies,  B.  145. 15. 

ReParier. 

Et  li  altre  s'en  reparierent  fuiant  arriere  en  Tost. 

Ville-Hardouin,  ch.  XXI. 

Tourner . 

Sun  petit  pas  s’en  turnet  cancelant. 

Ch.  de  Roland,  2227. 

Quand  paiens  virent  Gormund  mort, 

Fuiant  s'en  tournent  vers  le  port. 

Gormund  and  Isembard,  421  (Rom.  St.  III.  562). 

Entrer, 

Main  a  main  entrent  dedans  lor  chids  saignant. 

Amis  et  Amiles,  B.  62.  11. 

ysuiH  ir . 

I'  i  ll  <lc  -aillrnr  l  ultrc  .^iiniiiii.itii . 

Uoiiiun  dt:  Ki>u,  3236. 

Issir. 

Richart  ist  de  la  vile  sur  son  cheval  curant. 

Ditto,  3246. 


13 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


Accourir. 

Kar  de  Roem  acurent  burgeis  e  paisant, 

Macues  e  guisarmes  e  haches  aportant. 

Ditto,  4093. 

£j/i7r^r^{=dchapper). 

E  Normant  lur  estordent  **  Dieu  aie  **  criant. 

Ditto,  3235. 

Encalcer. 

Vers  Saraguce  les  encalcent  ferant, 

A  colps  pleniers  les  en  vunt  ociant. 

Ch.  de  Roland, 

Sourdre, 

Par  la  priere  Auban  est  surse  du  pendant 

Funtainne  freide  e  clere  k  grand  ruissel  curant. 

Vie  de  S.  Auban,  1167. 

Ap^arnitre, 

Angeres  i  aparurent  k  clerc  voiz  chantant. 

Ditto,  1182. 

It  is  useless  to  add  more  to  this  list;  for 
constructions  of  this  kind  are  so  often  met, 
that  I  believe  it  would  not  be  a  rash  state¬ 
ment  to  say  that  about  four-fifths  of  all  the 
examples  of  the  gerund  without  en  will  be 
found  to  be  accompanied  with  a  verb  of 
motion.  To  see  how  the  proportion  would 
stand,  I  have  counted  the  examples  in  several 
characteristic  works.  It  will  be  observed  that 
some  authors  are  much  fonder  of  this  mode 
of  thought-expression  than  others.  The 
figures  indicate  the  number  of  times  the  con¬ 
struction  occurs  with  the  verbs  they  follow. 

Voyage  de  Charlemagyie  (860  lines).  Tour- 
ner,  2;  remeindre,  i;  trouver,  2;  aller,  6; 
voir,  i;  tenir,  i ;  venir,  i ;  absolute(?)  2. 

Chanson  de  Roland  (4002  lines).  Aller,  28  ; 
venir,  i ;  absolute(?),  i ;  mourir,  2  ;  tourner,  i; 
encalcer,  i. 

Roman  d'Aquin  (3087  lines).  Tourner,  2; 
aller,  30;  voir,  i  ;  gesir,  i ;  venir,  i. 

Berte  aus  Grans  Pies  (3482  lines).  Faire,  i; 
aller,  2;  trouver,  i  ;  venir,  i. 

Flor  et  Blanceflor  (3342  lines).  Aller,  8; 
venir,  2. 

H.  de  Valenciennes  (Hist,  de  I’Empereur 
Henri).  Envoyer,  i;  aller,  7 ;  venir,  i;  che- 
vaucher,  i ;  absolute)?). 

Gtiiot  de  Brovins  (La  Bible).  Aller,  4. 

Traduction  de  Gtiil.  de  Tyr.  Courir,  i  ; 
mener,  i  ;  chevaucher,  i  ;  prendre,  i  ;  tre- 
bucher,  i;  venir,  ii ;  faire,  2;  suivre,  3; 
absolute)?),  ii;  fuir,  i;  instrumental,  3 ;  trou¬ 
ver,  I ;  retourner,  4;  oir,  i  ;  aller,  ii  ;  chasser, 
I  ;  mourir,  i. 


Vie  de  Seint  Audan  (1845  lines).  Venir,  2  ; 
aller,  21 ;  gesir,  i;  absolute)?),  3;  remaindre, 
I ;  resplendir,  i;  oir,  i ;  trouver,  3  ;  passer,  i; 
laisser,  i ;  voir,  i ;  surdre,  i ;  aparaistre,  i ; 
faillir,  i. 

Ville-Hardouin  (La  Conqueste  de  Constan- 
tinoble).  Reparier,  i ;  aller,  7  ;  venir,  3 ; 
tourner,  i ;  envoyer,  i ;  absolute)?),  2. 

De  Joinville  (Hist,  de  Saint  Louis).  Venir, 
6  ;  trouver,  2  ;  aller,  2 ;  faire,  i ;  as  adverb,  i ; 
sentir,  i ;  absolute)?),  2. 

Aiol  et  Mirabel  (10,985  lines).  Aller,  68; 
venir,  9  ;  oir,  i ;  encaucher,  i ;  absolute)?),  2  ; 
tourner,  2  ;  fuir,  i ;  par,  i. 

It  seems  almost  superfluous  to  cite  examples 
from  the  other  languages,  as  this  French  con¬ 
struction  is  universally  current  throughout  the 
whole  Romanic  group.  That,  however, 
nothing  may  be  taken  on  faith,  I  'give  a  few 
from  hundreds  of  examples  noted,  remarking 
that  I  have  been  struck  with  the  more 
frequent  occurrence  of  the  construction  in 
early  French  and  Proven9al,  especially  with 
aller  and  venir,  than  in  any  of  the  others. 

Provengal. 

Laisse  loill,  e  per  nuilla  re 

No  venga  ves  lui  trop  corren. 

Daiide  de  Pradas,  B.  177.  32. 

Car  90  es  pessamentz  confus 

Que  ven  en  cor  aissi  corren. 

Ditto,  El  Romanz,  1.  49  (Stickney's  ed). 

Un  bon  juzieu  que  aquo  auzi, 

Tantost  corren  d’aqui  parti. 

B.'s  Denkmaler,  XXXIX.  p.  274. 

E  Peire  Vidals  s’en  isset  fugen. 

Bib.  der  Troub.  XXII. 

Italian. 

Salian  scherzando  i  pargoletti  amori. 

Ariosto,  sonetto. 

E  quando  a  morte  deseando  corro. 

Petrarca. 

Ch’io  mi  parti’sbigottito  fugendo. 

Guido  Cavalcanti. 

Chiara  fontana  ancor  surgea  d'un  monte 

Mormorando  con  aqua  dolce  e  fresca. 

Tasso,  Gerus.  Conquist.  XV.  44. 

E  che  accorrer  potea  un  giorno 

Camminando  alia  bufera. 

Giorgi  Bertola. 

Spanish. 

Los  males  vienen  corriendo 

Jorge  Manrique. 

La  olvidada  infanta  Urraca 

Vertiendo  1  grimas  entra. 

Rom,  del  Cid.  p.  96.  (.Voegelin). 


14 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


De  zamora  sale  Dolfos 
Corriendo  y  apresurado. 

Ditto,  p.  152. 

La  pied,  sacdmiel,  fu^se  volando. 

Luis  Martin. 


Porttfguese. 

. e  as  terras  viciosas 

De  Africa  e  de  Asia  andavam  devastando. 

Camoens,  Os  Lus.  I.  2. 
Pizando  o  crystallino  cdo  formoso 
Vem  pela  Via  Latea . 

Ditto,  I.  20. 

Mas  o  animal  atroce  nesse  instante 


Bramando  duro  corre . 

Ditto,  I,  78. 

Wallachian, 

C3  Jonanti  a  venitii  nice  mancandu  niegbendii 
Math,  XI.  18, 

Vine  alergand  pe  scena  cu  un  snop  de  burnene  in 
manu.  ^  • 

V.  Alecsandri,  Mama  Anghelusa. 
Halmana  in  costum  de  larna  trece  tinend  o  valizil. 

Ditto,  Haimana. 


With  verbs  of  motion  there  may  be,  in 
general,  two  kinds  of  construction  in  conjunc¬ 
tion  with  other  verbs :  namely,  that  already 
illustrated,  in  which  the  gerund  accompanies 
the  finite  verb;  and  a  second,  in  which  the 
infinitive  is  used  with  or  without  a  preposition. 
The  latter  use  of  the  infinitive  is  by  far  the 
more  common.  In  either  case,  that  is,  whether 
the  preposition  be  used  or  not,  the  verb  of 
motion  expresses  the  purpose  to  be  ac¬ 
complished  by  the  concomitant  infinitive.  The 
distinction  in  shade  of  meaning  is  usually 
this  ;  when  the  idea  of  purpose  is  strongly 
implied,  the  preposition  serves  to  give  promi¬ 
nence  to  the  purpose  ;  whereas  the  preposition 
is  omitted  when  the  purpose  is  not  conspicu¬ 
ous.  We  may  illustrate  this  by  the  sentences: 
Je  vais  au  theatre  m’amuser  tons  les  soirs,  and 
je  vais  au  theatre  tons  les  soirs  non-seulement 
pour  m’amuser  mais  aussi  pour  observer  et 
pour  apprendre — a  distinction,  which  we 
should  secure  in  English  by  :  for  the  ptirpose 
of  or  by  the  simple  infinitive  with  to,  accord¬ 
ing  as  we  did,  or  did  not,  desire  to  emphasize 
the  purpose. 


La  fame  Amile  a  la  clere  fason 
Estoit  alee  por  faire  s'orison. 

Amis  et  Amiles,  B.  61.  37. 


La  donzela,  e  per  saber 
Si  sa  beutatz  era  tan  grans. 

Guillem  de  la  Bara  (Meyer,  Recueil,  p.  128.) 

This  reference  to  the  infinitive  construction 
with  a  verb  of  motion  has  been  made,  in  order 
to  lead  up  to  the  consideration  of  certain 
cases  in  which  the  infinitive  and  gerund 
touch  each  other  so  nearly,  in  point  of  use  and 
signification,  that  they  become  virtual  equiva¬ 
lents. 

I.  II  se  relieve  a  grant  paine 
Par  grant  air  le  va  requerre, 

Roman  de  Renart,  B.  213.  9. 

2.  Quant  il  nous  virent,  il  nous  vindrent 
sus  courre. 

Joinville,  Hist,  de  S.  Louis,  ch.  XLVI. 

3.  Aisi  se  van  ferir  cum  cascus  venc 
No  lor  valo  escut  pur  un  besenc. 

G.  de  Rossilho,  2180. 

4.  L'effant  Jhesus  i  ameneron. 

Ad  Arian  lo  prezenteron. 

Pueis  van  li  dire  e  pregar, 

Que  reflfant  volgues  essenhar. 

B/s  Denkmaler,  xxxix.  p.  273, 

5.  Arian  vai  li  demandar: 

Mon  effant,  ar  digas  aleph 
E  en  apres  tu  diras  beph. 

Ditto,  p.  273. 

6.  Grans  meravilhas  se  doneron. 

Per  la  vila  s'en  van  cridan. 

Ditto,  p.  274. 

7.  E  totz  los  juzieus  van  cridar  : 

Ailas  caitiu  !  e  que  ferem 

Ni  qual  cosselh  penre  porem  ? 

Ditto,  p.  292. 

8.  E  en  apres  el  manda  diire  als  mainaders 

Ez  als  baros  de  Fransa  ez  als  sieus  logadiers. 
Chanson  de  la  Croisade  des  Albigeois,  8,412. 

9.  E  mandet  dire  a  nUgo  de  la  signa  que 
vengues  a  Usercha  en  un  bore  on  estava  en 
Gaucelm  Faidit. 

Bib.  derTroub.  XL. 

10.  Volga  la  vista  (^esiosa  e  lieta 
Cercandomi . 

Petrarca. 

11.  Mand6  il  cavaliero  all’albergo  della 
corona,  sappiendo  (=:ad  informarsi)  se  era  suo 
famiglio. 

Franco  Sachetti. 

12.  E  estando  de  fora,  enviarAo  a  elle  cha- 
mando-o. 

Marcos,  III.  31. 


Ahtant  se  volgran  acordar 
Qual  duy  pogran  anar  veser 


13.  Os  Portuguezes  somos  do  Occidente, 
Imos  buscando  as  terras  doOriente. 


15 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


Os  Lus.  I,  50. 

14.  Que  tempo  concertado  e  ventos  tinha 
Para  ir  buscando  0  Indo  desejado. 

Ditto,  I.  gs. 


15.  Si  neaflandii-10,  s’afi  intorsti  la  Jerusa- 
limQ  cantanda-lti. 

Luca,  II.  45. 

x6.  Porque  viene  mi  nina 
Cogiendo  flores. 

Anonymous,  isih  cent. 


The  first  of  the  examples  is  not  very  decid¬ 
ed,  for  although,  as  the  context  shows,  Dans 
Constanz,  considering  his  position,  does  not 
have  to  “go”  in  order  to  strike  Isengrin,  va 
requerre  may  express  future,  rather  than  pro¬ 
gressive,  action.  Still  there  can  be  no  doubt 
but  that,  in  accordance  with  the  freedom,  I 
might  almost  say,  looseness,  of  the  gerundial 
construction  at  this  time,  the  author,  if  push¬ 
ed  for  a  rime,  would  not  have  scrupled  to  use, 
all  the  circumstances  and  situations  remaining 
the  same,  the  gerund  as  an  equivalent  for  the 
infinitive,  without  feeling  he  was  guilty  of  any 
grammatical  negligence.  A  part  of  this  re¬ 
mark  might  apply  to  the  quotation  from 
Girart  de  Rossilho ;  but  the  passage  shows 
rather  that  van  ferir  means  that  the  knights 
continue  ihe  fight,  “cum  cascus  venc  ;  ”  i.  e. 
van  is  subordinate  to  ferir,  in  other  words, 
copulative ;  so  that  the  same  numice  of 
thought  might  have  been  rendered  by  i>an 
fereyi. 

In  No.  2,  it  is  plain  that  courant  substituted 
for  courre  would  not  vary,  in  the  slightest 
degree,  the  thought,  wliich  is :  they  came 
rushing  upon  us.  The  first  two  lines  of  No. 

4  inform  us  that  the  parents  of  Jesus  were 
already  in  the  presence  of  Arian.  It  can  not, 
therefore,  be  said  of  them  literally  x'an,  they 
go;  wox  CM\  van  dire  be  explained  here 
as  future.  Being  already  before  Arian,  they 
speak  to  him  and  request  him  to  undertake 
the  instruction  of  their  son ;  or  they  go  on 
telline:  thCix  story  and  requesthigfhxxi,  etc. 

No.  s  contains  a  still  more  decided  instance 
ofllie  copiilatix  f  use  \  da)HU  \  as  vai  UdeniiUi- 
f/ifc  uieaiis  H  dt  inandw  notliiiig  more.  In 
inoiletn  I'leiu  li  venir  is  soinelimes  used  in 
\  ery  nearly  the  same  way  :  I'n  sourire  livide  , 
\'ient  glacer  ses  traits,  {/.e  Rmnfais,  Boston,  j 
vol.  i,  p.  55).  I 


A  comparison  of  6  and  7,  taken  in  connex¬ 
ion  with  the  passages  in  which  they  occur, 
shows  the  same  approximation  in  thought¬ 
shading,  of  s’en  van  cridan  and  van  cridar ; 
the  difference,  if  any,  is  very  slight.  So 
manda  diire  and  mandet  dire,  in  the  two 
following  examples,  are  seen  to  be  modes  of 
expression  analogous  to :  mandet  disen,  pre- 
gan  in  :  E  tan  tost  com  el  fo  vengutz  el  man¬ 
det  disen  al  Dalfil  et  al  comte  Guion  que  ill 
li  deguessen  aiudar.  Bib.  der  Troub.  XIV.; 
in :  el  li  mandet  pregan  qu’el  fezes  si  qu’el 
fezes  mudar  los  edificis,  ditto,  B.  241,  15;  to  : 
mandd  sappiendo  (No.  ii);  and  to  the  Portu¬ 
guese  ;  enviarao  chamando  (No.  12).  The 
Wallachian  and  Spanish  would  likewise  use 
the  gerund  here  after  the  verb  to  send.  And 
so  Henri  de  Valenciennes,  in  the  work  already 
quoted  (ch.  IV),  uses  enz'oyer:  Et  envoierent 
lor  archiers  huant  et  glatissant  et  faisant  une 
noise.  Cf.  also  Romania  VIII,  9o:Je  me 
levoy  un  matin  au  jort  prenant,  Entvoy  m’en 
en  un  giardin  la  flor  culhant.  In  modern 
French  also  the  gerund  after  this  same  verb, 
as  well  as  after  other  verbs  of  motion,  is  allow¬ 
able  to  express  a  purpose,  although  the  in¬ 
finitive  is  more  common,  in  accordance  with  a 
general  preference  which  the  Frenchman 
entertains  for  the  infinitive  construction, 
where  no  ambiguity  arises  by  its  use.* 

M.  de  Freycinet  a  appris  qu’une  note,  dma- 
nant  du  minist^re  de  I’int^rieur,  avait  dt^  en¬ 
voy^  disant  que  M.  de  Freycinet  avait 
capital^. 

Courrier  des  Etats  Unis. 

J’eus  peur  d’avoir  senti  la  peur  une  fois,  et 
prenant  mon  sabre,  cachd  sous  mon  bras, 
j’entrai  le  premier  brusquement  donnant 
l’exem|)le  a  mes  grenadiers. 

A.  de  Vigny. 

A^tius  avait  d^ja  d^pech^  ses  courriers  dans 
toute  la  Gaule  et  chez  les  peoples  alli&,  les 
invitant  a  s’unir  h  lui. 

Le  Beau. 

G’est  le  voyageur  quo  nous  avons  vu  tout  h 
riioiuo  oner  clioroliaiu  un  gito. 

\  .  Hug.,. 

It  is  Util  p.issiblo  ii,  iutorpret  tliosc  geruui.ls 

♦II  esi  (Ians  le  gt^nie  tie  la  langue  frana9ise  de  preftVcr  I’in- 
finilif  h  tom  autre  mode,  quand  la  clarn5  de  la  phra.sc  n’en  csi 
pas  alierdc, — Hokel. 


The  Geruvdial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


otherwise  than  as  expressing  a  purpose  ;  for  in 
some  of  them  the  infinitive  with  pour  could 
be  substituted ;  and  in  the  others,  while  in 
their  present  shape  this  substitution  could 
hardly  be  made,  its  exclusion  would  be  more 
owing  to  the  cacophony  that  would  thereby 
arise  than  to  any  forbidding  principle  of  gram¬ 
mar.  In  the  case  of  the  first  and  last  sentence, 
a  well-educated  Frenchman,  if  asked  why  not 
use  pour  dire  and  pour  chercher,  would  likely 
answer:  C’est  I’harmonie  de  la  phrase  qui 
exige  le  g^rondif  (participe),  as  V harmonie  is 
the  universal  retreat  behind  which  French¬ 
men  take  shelter,  when  brought  face  to  face 
with  a  knotty  point  of  grammar. 

The  gerunds  in  lo,  15,  16  may  as  legitimate¬ 
ly  be  regarded  as  expressing  a  purpose  as  co¬ 
incident  or  progressive  action,  and  the  thought 
would  not  be  materially  changed,  if  they  were 
converted  into  the  infinitive  construction. 
We  see  this  well  illustrated  in  the  two  remain¬ 
ing  examples  (13  and  14),  which  do  not  differ 
essentially  in  signification,  since  the  purpose 
of  the  going,  in  both  cases,  is  to  look  for 
India. 

From  the  foregoing  reasoning  we  gather 
that,  after  a  verb  of  motion,  the  infinitive  or 
gerund  may  take  the  place  of  a  final  depend¬ 
ent  clause. 

Here  belong  also  certain  verbs,  which, 
while  they  are  not  verbs  of  motion,  are  ac¬ 
companied  by  verbals  in  -a7it  which  serve  to 
complete,  in  a  manner,  the  predication  of  the 
principal  verb.  They  may,  in  most  cases,  be 
resolved  into  adverbial  phrases. 

Car  ml  fil  sont  ocis  et  mort  saignan. . 

Amis  et  Amiles,  H.  62.  37. 

A  peine  chant  remeint  li  quors  en  piz  batant. 

Vie  de  S.  Auban,  844. 

Je  li  lo  bienqu'elle  vos  maint  tandant. 

Jeu-parti,  341.  16. 

Murut  subitement  scant  sus  une  sele. 

Ilerte  aus  Grans  Pi^s,  2072. 

Lo  corns  G.  e  ilh  sen  s'en  van  dolen, 

0  E  Ihi  baro  dc  K.  restan  ploran, 

G.  de  Rossilho,  5340. 

Tlie  nature  of  the  examples  considered  up 
to  the  present  time  has  been  such  that  the 
action  of  the  dependent  verb  (gerund  or  infini- 
him  complete  the  action  ;  2d,  that  I  saw  him 
performing  an  act  which  he  began  before  I 
looked  and  may  havecontinned  after  I  turned 


away  ;  but  for  the  present :  I  see  him  going  in¬ 
to  the  house,  only  ;  since,  I  see  him  go  into  the 
house,  can  only  be  said  of  a  habit  or  an  action 
indefinitely  repeated  and  would  usually  be 
accompanied  by  an  adverb  indicating  the 
habit,  etc ;  as,  I  see  him  go  into  the  house 
every  day.  However,  here,  as  in  other  things, 
what  ought  to  be  is  at  variance  with  what 
actually  is,  and  we  find  a  great  freedom  in  the 
use  of  the  infinitive.  Indeed,  with  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  to  find  {meet,  come  upo7i,  etc.),  the  in¬ 
finitive  (or  some  other  construction)  has  gen¬ 
erally  usurped,  in  the  modern  languages,  the 
place  of  the  gerund,  and  is  used  to  express  both 
completed  and  continued  action,  according  to 
the  construction  of  the  sentence. 

Trouver. 

Ses  maisuns  truva  arses  e  ses  viles  ardant, 

E  un  suen  fils  truva  mort  en  biere  gisant, 

E  sa  femme  e  sa  gent  merveillus  duel  faisant. 

Roman  de  Rou,  4104. 

Vint  milie  chevaliers  i  troverent  seant, 

E  sunt  vestut  de  palies  e  de  hermines  blans. 

Voyage  de  Charlemagne,  267. 

Les  enfans  trueve  gisanz  soz  la  valee, 

En  seant  ierent,  s’ont  grant  joie  menee. 

Amis  et  Amiles. 

Lc  maillet  troverent  pendant 
A  la  port  par  de  devant. 

Le  Pelerinage  Renart,  93. 

E  quand  venc  un  dia,  Raimons  de  Castel 
Rosillon  trobet  passan  Guillem  de  Cabestaing. 

Bib.  derTroub.,  IX. 

This  construction  is  still  preserved,  in  all  its 
freedom,  in  the  modern  language: 

Linus  venant  du  ciel  sur  Pegase,  au  relai, 

Troiive  votre  sorci  re  enfourchant  son  balai. 

V.  Hugo,  Religions  et  Religion,  p.  33. 

L’abb6  alia  rejoindre  Jeanne  et  Gabriel, 
qu’il  trouva  se  promenant  avec  tristesse  dans 
le  pare  dii  chateau. 

Alc^e  Fortier,  Gabriel  d’Ennerich,  p.  23. 
It  is,  moreover,  common  to  the  whole  group  of 
Romance  tongues,  as  may  be  illustrated  by 
the  46th  verse  of  the  24th  cliapter  of  Matthew, 
which  has  been  rendered  by  them  all  in  the 
same  manner. 

Heureux  ce  serviteur  que  son  niaitre  trou- 
vera  faisant  ainsi  quand  il  arrivera. 

Beato  quel  servitore,  il  quale  il  suo  signore, 
quando  egli  verra,  trovera  facendo  cosi. 

Bienaventiirado  aquel  siervo,  alcnal,  cuan- 


17 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


do  sii  Seiior  viniere,  le  liallare  haciendo  asi. 

Bienaveiitiirado  aquelle  servo,  ao  qual, 
quando  seu  Senhor  vier,  o  achar  fazendo 
assim. 

Fericitiieste  servulti  acela,  pre  care,  venindtt 
domiauia  seii,  ’lii  va  afla  facendQ  a§a. 

Luther  translated  here  by  the  infinitive  with¬ 
out  any  apparent  reason,  as  it  was  departing 
from  the  Greek  (o  v  tXScov  6  uvpioi  avrov 
Evpvdei  ovTOoi  Ttviuvera),  and  we  find  him 
using  the  participle  with  yfwo'cw  in  Marc  XIII, 
36  :  auf  dass  er  nicht  schnell  komme  und  finde 
euch  schlafend.  The  infinitive  is  not  admissi¬ 
ble  in  the  Romanic  languages,  as  far  as  my 
observation  goes,  but  is  still  current  in  Ger¬ 
man,  its  use  depending  upon  certain  condi¬ 
tions,  the  discussion  of  which  would  be  out  of 
place  here. 

Ouir  (entendre). 

The  gerund  or  infinitive  is  indififerently  used 
without  any  appreciable  distinction. 

Examples : 

Fors  fut  la  noise  etla  bataille  grans 
Et  li  hustins  mervillous  et  pesans, 

N’i  oissiez  nes  damedeu  tonnant. 

Ch.  de  Gibert  de  Metz  (Rom.  St.  I,  464). 

Nils  tut  VO  veimes  ke  m'o"z  recuntant. 

Vie  d  S.  Auban,  1184. 

Et  frainte  d’armes  i  avait  par  tout,  que  Ten 
n’oist  mie  Dieu  tonant. 

Tr.  de  Guil.  de  Tyr,  Liv.  iv. 

Li  arcevesque  les  ot  contrarier. 

Ch.  de  Roland,  1737. 

llloec  m'assis  pour  escouter 
Deus  dames  quej'oi  parler. 

Flore  et  Hlanceflor,  44.  j 

Car  adonc  aguera  om  ausit  les  sens  et  campanas  i 
sonar  al  repiquet.  ^  j 

Ch.  de  la  Croisade  d’Albigeois.  i 

“Summae  Deus  clementiae,”  nel  seno 
Del  grand'  ardore  allora  iidi’  cantanoo. 

Dante,  Purg.  XXV,  122. 

K  degU  uccelli  le  diverse  e  tante 
Odo  voci  cantar  dolci  e  gioconde. 

Vitt.  Colon na . 

Le  oigo  hablando  con  un  hombre  desconocido. 

.Sauer’s  Gram,  espagnole. 

Aslfelttl  aiuli  pero  tengra  cochetS  parisianS 
dicGul  ca  a  primiit  un  puiii  de  gainS. 

\’.  Alecsandri. 

The  Wallachian  excejited,  the  modern  lan¬ 
guages  seem  to  avoid  the  gerund  with  words 
signifying  to  hear,  and  the  infinitive  or  a  rela-  i 


five  clause  is  used  instead.  The  two  following 
examples  with  e7ttendre,  which  now  usually 
takes  the  place  of  the  obsolescent  ouir,  will 
serve  to  illustrate  the  use  of  the  infinitive  to 
express  completed  or  progressive  action. 

J’ai  entendu  le  rossignolet  chanter  dans  son 
langage.  Romania,  IX,  565. 

Mais  tout  se  tait.  Je  n'entends  rien  venir. 

V.  Hugo,  Hernani. 

It  is  not  pretended,  of  course,  that  entendre 
is  not  constructed  with  the  gerund ;  yet  it 
does  not  seem  possible  to  lay  down  a  rule  for 
its  use.  Judging  from  this  sentence:  Enten- 
dons  maintenant  Alcuin  signalant  ^  Charle¬ 
magne  les  memes  abus  (Haur^au),  we  might 
probably  apply  to  entendre  what  further  on  is 
said  of  iwir. 

Ecouter. 

On  4coutait  avec  plaisir  les  Jongleurs  chan- 
tant  les  jestes  des  anciens. 

Paulin  Paris,  Preface  to  Guil.  de  Tyr. 
I'oir  (with  the  gerund). 

Jeo  vi,  dist  il,  une  mult  bele 

Par  desus  les  ewes  montant. 

Guil.  le  Clerc  de  Normandie. 

Quant  le  virenl  en  Pair  salant, 

Bauduin  de  Sebourc,  B.  397,  8. 

Quant  li  sires  le  vit  venant. 

Si  le  salua  maintenant 

Li  Contes  del  Graal,  B.  166,  17. 

Jeu  VOS  vigui  entre  los  layois  penden 

On  VOS  fazian  irops  grans  escarnimens. 

Plainte  de  Notre  Dame,  58. 

K  vidi  spirti  per  la  fiamma  andando. 

Dante,  Purg,  XXV.,  124. 

Vido  al  conde  paseando 

Y  estas  palabras  le  ha  dicho. 

Rom.  del  Cid  (Voegelin). 

Diego,  f,  Que  viste  ? 

Al  gran  Fernando, 

Mi  vida  con  mi  muerte  amenazando. 

G.  de  Castro,  Moc.  del  Cid,  Pt.  seg.  1,  4. 

Como  vereis  o  mar  fervendo  acceso 

Co’  os  incendios  dos  vossos  pelejando. 

Os  Lus,  II,  54  (also  II,  68). 

Cine  m’ar  viclea  cutrieranci  ora.sul  cu  valiza 
pe  spinare,  ar  cuteza  porte  a  crede  cS  shit 
vagabond  ? 

V.  Alecsandri,  Halmana. 
/L)7V(with  the  infinitive). 

Quant  ele  venir  ne  le  voit, 

'I'antost  arriere  s’tn  relorne. 

Fabliatis  des  Pcrdris,  B,  293,  24. 


18 


The  Gertindial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


. donde  il  mattin  partille, 

Vedendo  di  lontano  fumar  le  ville. 

Giusto  de’  Conte  Romano. 

Veras  despues  las  potencias 
Ir  valiendo. . . . 

Juan  Rufe. 

. o  grao  Thebano 

Olliando  oajuntamento  Lucitano 
As  mouro  ser  molesto  e  aborrecido. 

Os  Lus.  I,  73. 

Occasionally  both  constructions  are  found 
in  the  same  sentence  : 

Mult  veisslez  formant  issir  aronez  Normanz 
Querre  turneiemens  e  juste  demandanz. 

Roman  de  Rou,  3357. 

Ed  al  nome  dell’  alto  Maccabeo 
Vidi  muoversi  un  altro  roteando. 

Dante,  Pur.  XVIII,  41. 

E  quand’  eo  veggio  li  altri  cavalieri 
Arme  portare  e  d'amore  parlando. 

Folcacchiero  de’  Folcacchieri. 

The  infinitive  is  much  the  more  common, 
even  where  the  gerund  would  be  more  logical. 
This  is  especially  true  of  the  Old  French.  It 
would  be  but  reasonable,  for  instance,  to  ex¬ 
pect  in  the  quotation  from  Guillaume 

d’Orange  (B.  65,  18); 

Vivien  vit  gesir  desoz  un  guet 
Desoz  un  abre  qu'est  foillus  et  ramez. 

For  Guillaume  did  not  see  Vivien  lie  down 
but  saw  him  already  in  that  posture  {tying),  as 
any  other  man  would,  without  doubt,  have 
been  who  had  had  his  body  pierced  with  fifteen 
wounds,  from  any  one  of  which  (the  old 
romancer  naively  adds)  an  emir  would  have 
died. 

What  was  said  with  reference  to  the  current 
construction  with  verbs  signifying  to  hear, 
holds,  with  some  little  modification,  of  verbs 
meaning  to  see. 

The  Wallachian,  which  is  generally  more 
varied  in  its  syntax  than  the  other  members  of 
its  group,  makes  very  free  use  of  the  gerund. 
Of  thirty  odd  instances  noted  in  the  Bible,  the 
Italian,  .Spanish  and  Portuguese  translate  by 
the  infinitive  or  a  relative  clause,  while  the 
Wallachian  invariably  employs  the  gerund. 
I'his  is  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  rule  laid 
down  by  the  grammarians — the  Italian  gerund 
being  excluded  by  the  grammatical  dictum, 
that  the  gerund  should  always  refer  to  the  sub¬ 
ject  ;  while  for  the  Portuguese  and  .Spanish  the 


infinitive  is  to  be  preferred  (unless  the  idea  of 
duration  is  to  be  made  very  prominent),  and 
always  where  the  principle  verb  is  in  a  past 
tense  or  the  object  is  a  noun.  The  Wallachian, 
however,  is  not  trammeled  by  any  such  restric¬ 
tions,  provided  the  thought  is  clearly  ex¬ 
pressed.  It  is  this  latter  point  which  deter¬ 
mines,  to  a  great  extent,  the  syntax  of  the  ger¬ 
und  in  all  these  languages.  The  Italian  has 
probably  not  gained  anything  by  its  rigorous 
e.xactness.  In  such  cases  as  those  cited  from 
the  Divina  Commedia  and  in  the  one  follow¬ 
ing,  from  Vittoria  Colonna,  there  could  be  no 
possible  misunderstanding  and,  consequently, 
there  is  no  good  reason  why  the  construction 
should  have  fallen  under  the  ban  of  the  gram¬ 
marian. 

Ed  a  mirar  i  lor  piJi  cari  armenti 
Pascendo  insieme  far  piacevol  guerra. 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  the  rule 
often  prevents  ambiguity  in  a  very  neat  way. 
Separated  from  its  context,  the  following  stanza 
from  Metastasio’s  canzonetta.  La  Potenza, 
might  present  some  difficulty,  smee  giimgendo 
could  logically  be  taken  either  with  quanti  or 
with  the  subject  of  vedrai.  The  possible  mis¬ 
understanding  is  obviated  by  applying  the  rule. 

Quanti  vedrai  giungendo 
Al  nuovo  tuo  soggiorno, 

Quanti  venirti  intorno 
k  offrirti  amore  e  fe. 

The  same  ambiguity  is  avoided  in  : 

Ch’amor  quest’  occhi  lagrimando  chuida. 

Petrarca. 

The  French  easily  evades  the  difficulty  by 
the  use  of  en  before  the  gerund  ;  En  arrivant 
a  ton  nouveau  s4jour  combien  de  personnes  tu 
verras  &c.  E71  with  the  gerund  always  express¬ 
ing  adverbial  relations,  it  can  never  take  the 
place  of  an  adjective  clause  and  must  conse¬ 
quently  affect  the  action  of  the  principal  verb 
and  not  its  object. 

At  the  present  day  the  construction  in 
French  with  verbs  of  seeing  and  synonymous 
import  is  dependent  upon  conditions  more 
easily  felt  than  defined.  It  would  be  rash  to 
make  the  rule  a  general  one;  because  this 
would  leave  full  .scope  for  a  promiscuous  use 
of  the  gerund,  which  would  not  coincide  with 
jwactice.  I  believe  that  a  rule  formulated 
somewhat  as  follows  would  serve  as  a  pretty 


19 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


safe  guide :  namely,  the  gerund  occurs  more 
frequentlywith  a  verb  in  a  past  tense  and  that 
in  any  case  it  should  have  an  object  or  some 
phrase  to  modify  its  action. 

J’ai  vu  les  vents  grondant  sur  les  moissons 
superbes. 

Delille. 

Les  moines  et  les  pr^tendus  savants  ne 
virent  dans  cet  obscur  Stranger  qu’un  aventu- 
rier  cherchant  fortune  de  ses  chimdres. 

Lamartine. 

Ils  en  ^taient  1^  quand  des  paysans  les  aper- 
9urent  marchant  cote  a  cote  dans  I’enclos. 

Saintine. 

Je  les  vois  cherchant  ^  deviner  des  dnigmes 
sans  mots  et  je  les  aide  ^  s’embrouiller. 

George  Sand. 

Jeme  d^fie  de  la  dialectique,  quand  je  vois 
I’esprit  hiimain  tournant  sur  lui-meme. 

Nisard. 

La  famille  en  pulit  et  vit  en  frJmissant 

Dans  la  poudre  du  greffe  un  po'te  naissant 

Boileau, 

II  contemplait  la  forme  svelte  et  ^l^gante 
de  la  jeune  fille  traversant  la  cour  an  bras  du 
docteur. 

X.  de  Mont^pin. 

Je  t’ai  vu  la  griffonant  sur  ton  genou  et 
chantant  d^s  le  matin. 

Beaumarchais. 

Sentir. 

The  construction  of  this  verb,  which  falls 
under  the  same  rubric  as  other  verbs  of  per¬ 
ception,  has  been  noted  in  a  few  instances ; 
but  considered  either  with  reference  to  modern 
or  early  usage,  it  does  not  call  for  any  special 
discussion  which  has  not  already  been  covered 
by  the  remarks  on  other  verbs  of  this  class. 
We  need  to  stop,  tlierefore,  to  notice  only  a 
few  e.xamples. 

Quant  il  nous  senti  venans,  il  toucha  en  fuie. 

Joinville,  Hist,  de  S.  Louis,  ch.  c. 

Voltando  sentirei  le  giostre  graine. 

Dante,  Piirg.  XYII,  42. 

Y  qiic  con  el  deseo  agonizando 

Morir  me  siento  de  la  misma  suerte. 

Anonymous,  15th  Cent. 

And  in  the  modern  languages  : 

Mais  il  la  sentit  menteuse,  incapable  de  se 
garder,  se  donnant  aux  amis,  aux  passants,  en 
bonne  bete  n^'^e  pour  vi\  re  sans  chemise. 

Zola, Nana,  p.  474. 


La  pauvre  femme  se  sentit  litt^ralement 
mourir. 

X.  de  Mont^pin. 

Epopea  nella  quale  si  sente  palpitare  il  cuore 
di  tutto  un  popolo. 

Nuova  Antologia,  Sec.  Ser.  XXIV,  385, 
Faire. 

Our  attention  will  now  be  claimed  by  faire, 
which  occurs  with  verbals  in  -ant,  and  which, 
as  already  observed,  requires  special  consid¬ 
eration.  It  may  be  stated  at  the  outset  that 
this  construction  has  been  found  only  in  early 
French  and  Provencal  and  is  probably  pecu¬ 
liar  to  these  languages.  And  again,  its  total 
absence  from  some  authors  is  somewhat  re¬ 
markable;  while  others  use  it  only  with  en- 
tenda7it,  which  usually,  tho’  not  always,  may 
he  translated  by  the  passive  voice.  This  fact, 
together  with  the  observation  that  certain 
combinations  of  the  -ant  forms  with  the  pre¬ 
positions  h,  de,  par,  etc,  were  also  susceptible 
of  a  passive  rendering,  attracted  my  attention 
quite  early  in  my  researches  and  led  me  to 
conclude  that  not  only  the  Latin  present  parti¬ 
ciple  and  gerund,  but  also  the  gerundive  (par¬ 
ticiple  in  -dus)  were,  in  some  instances,  hidden 
under  these  verbals  in  -ant\  further,  that  the 
construction  of  the  gerund  with  faire,  regard¬ 
ed  from  the  standpoint  of  its  origin,  not  being 
natural,  the  construction  was  probably  refer¬ 
able  to  the  gerundive ;  and,  finally,  that  the 
fact  of  its  appearing  with  an  active  force  and 
governing  a  case  was  effected  through  analogy 
and  confusion  with  the  gerund  and  active  ]rar- 
ticiple.  That  is,  if  what  has  been  assigned  as 
the  probable  cause  of  the  inflexion  of  the 
Wallachian  gerund  be  true,  it  is  the  same  jiro- 
cess  of  passing  from  a  jrassive  to  an  active 
meaning.  In  Merovingian  Latin,  too,  we  have 
instances  in  which  the  passivity  of  the  partici¬ 
ple  in  -dus  was  o\’erIooked  and  it  was  allowed 
togovern  a  case.  In  the  “  foca  monachorum  ” 
we  read  ;  quis  asinam  pcrsiquenduin  renum 
invenet?  i.  e.  quis  asinam  pcrsequcns  regnum 
invenit?  There  can  be  no  doubt,  I  think,  that 
this  is  the  proper  interirretation  ;  and  the  case 
is  not  an  isolated  one  ;  fijr  in  the  same  collec¬ 
tion  is  found  a  similar  interchange  of  functions 
of  the  two  parts  of  siieech  :  ciuis  vivindum 
secuhim  vicit?  Now,  whether  vivindmn  be 


20 


The  Geriaidial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


here  construed  with  quis  or  seculum,  it  has 
the  same  force,  that  of  vivens. 

Returning  now  to  the  French  and  Proven¬ 
cal,  let  us  illustrate  what  has  been  said  by 
analyzing  a  few  sentences. 

Ainsi  li  fait  la  vielle  entendant  la  favele. 

Berte  aiis  Grans  Pits,  2079. 

Et  ces  choses  vous  rementoif-je  pour  vous 
faire  entendant  aucune  chose  qui  offierent  ^ 
ma  mati^re. 

Joinville,  S.  Louis,  ch.  XL. 

Id  in  the  first  of  these  examples  is  a  dative, 
and  vous,  in  the  second,  maybe  so  taken  like¬ 
wise  ;  and  they  might  be  turned  into  Latin, 
root  for  root,  in  this  way  : 

Illi  facit  vetula  intendendam  fabulam  ;  and 

. vobis  facere  intendendas  aliquas  unas 

causas  etc. 

But  the  Latin  gerundive  comes  out  much 
plainer  in  cases  where  a  preposition  is  used 
with  the  verbal  in  -ant. 

Des  qu’al’eue  de  Diepe  nus  iriim  esluignant, 

Mais  jeo  ferrai  anceis  a  cele  eue  passant. 

Roman  de  Rou,  3806. 

That  is  :  ad  (ab)  ecce-illam  aquam  passandam. 

Sire,  on  me  fait  a  entendant  (ad  intenden- 
dum)  que  vous  av^s  une  fille  &c. 

Henri  de  Valenciennes,  ch.  IX. 

If,  in  the  following  example  from  the  Trans¬ 
lation  of  Guillaume  de  Tyr,  te  is  to  be  taken 
for  an  accusative,  as  the  form  usually  is,  en- 
te7idant  is  then  active. 

M6s  cil  anions  le  decent  trop  malement,  qui 
entendant  le  fit  que  il  serait  patriarches.* 

Other  similar  constructions  are  not  infre¬ 
quently  met,  which  are  capable  of  being  re¬ 
solved  into  the  Latin  gerundive,  as  : 

*  The  admission  of  the  gerundive  in  early  French  offers  a 
satisfactory  explanation  of  the  construction  in  Tartuffe,  I,  i, 
now  a  very  common  expression  and  one  which,  tho'  an  evident 
difficulty  in  modern  syntax,  is  passed  over  in  silence  by  the 
grammars. 

Et  Pon  sail  qu'elle  est  prude  a  son  corps  defendant. 

By  turning  this  into  the  Latin  :  ad  suum  corpus  defenden- 
dum,  we  at  once  see  a  reason  for  the  construction  and  the  diffi¬ 
culty  vanishes.  The  expression,  therefore,  originally  meant, 
as  it  still  does;  en  se  defendant  contre  une  attaque;  the 
other  meanings  now  attaching  to  it,  such  as,  k  contre-coeur, 
avec  repugnance  etc.,  are  derivative.  The  translator  of  Guil¬ 
laume  de  Tyr  uses  an  equivalent  in  Liv,  II,  ch.  2,  where  in 
answer  to  Godefroiz,  the  king  says  : 

Si  y  meismes  la  main  comme  efforcid,  sur  nous  defendant. 


Dont  il  lessa  au  roy,  par  pais  faisaiit  (per  pa- 
cem  faciendam)  la  contee  de  Augo. 

Joinville,  ch.  XVI. 

Et  bien  voieiit  ke  se  il  par  sens  u  par  engen 
u  par  treuage  donnant  (per  tributaticum  don- 
andum)  n’entrent  en  la  chit^. 

Henri  de  Valenciennes,  ch.  XVI. 

And  so  in  Joinville  (ch.  CX) :  par  grant  tr^u 
rendant  (per  grande  tributum  reddendum). 

Turning  now  to  this  sentence  from  Guil¬ 
laume  de  Tyr  (Liv.  XI,  ch.  lo) : 

Et  ceus  qui  ne  s’en  voudroient  issir  fesoient 
remanoir  seurement  en  leur  teneures  par  ren¬ 
dant  une  resnable  somme  d’avoir, — we  seethe 
construction  has  either  become  active  or  so 
ambiguous  in  point  of  syntax  that  it  could 
hardly  fail  to  be  taken  as  such. 

If  we  compare  the  above  phrases  with  nu¬ 
merous  infinitive  constructions,  we  shall  have 
an  additional  proof  of  a  phenomenon  already 
discussed  at  some  length,  namely,  the  con¬ 
stant  Interchange  of verbals  in-a«/  with  the  in¬ 
finitives,  without  any  apparent  difference  in 
meaning  or  function.  In  Ville-Hardouin 
we  have  many  instances  of  the  construction 
in  question. 

Et  mistrent  grant  paine  ^  la  ville  prendre, 
(ch.  XCI),  which  is  evidently  represented  by 
the  Latin,  ad  villam  prehende7tda7n.  And  so 
inch.  XII:  mais  nos  ne  somes  mie  tant  de 
gent  que  par  nos  passage  paier  poons  les  lor 
attendee — a  construction,  which,  in  the  pas¬ 
sages  above  cited  from  Joinville  and  Henri  de 
Valenciennes,  we  found  explicable  by  a  parti¬ 
ciple  derived  from  the  Latin  gerundive  or  par¬ 
ticiple  in  -dus. 

This  will  suffice,  I  think,  to  show  that  the 
force  of  the  gerundive  construction  partially, 
at  least,  survived  among  the  early  French  and 
Provencal  speaking  people  and  brought  about 
the  construction  above  canvassed  ;  altho’  it  is 
more  than  probable  that  they  were  unconscious 
of  this,  owing  to  the  identity  of  form  with  the 
gerund  and  present  active  participle.  And  it 
was  likely  this  identity  of  form  which  led  to 
its  being  merged  into  the  other  verbals  in  -a7it 
and  apparently  becoming  active  in  force. 

A  few  other  examples  collected,  possibly 
show  this  active  force  a  little  more  clearly 
than  those  already  given,  and  I  set  them  down 
here  as  additional  proof. 


21 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


Car  por  fol  sembleir 

Me  font  cil  fauls  proiant  d’ameir. 

Guiot  de  Provins  (Wackernagel  XV). 
Renarz  mist  I’aive  sor  le  feu 
Et  la  fist  trestot  boillant. 

Roman  de  Renart,  B.  209,  9. 

E  vuelh  tenir  autre  viatge 
On  restaiire  so  que  m’a  fag  perden. 

Cadenet. 

Tant  estet  enviro  lo  lor  assetjamens 

Tro  grans  cocha  de  fam  fetz  celz  dedins  rendens. 

Peire  de  Corbiac,  B.  213,22. 

Olhs  de  merce,  boca  de  chanzimen, 

Nulhs  horn  nous  ve  que  nol  fassatz  jauzen. 

Peire  Vidal,  Song  44  (B.’s  ed.  1857). 

Not  fazas  ardit  ne  prezan 
Ne  ton  cor  non  aviles  tan. 

Daude  de  Pradas,  Four  card.  Virtues  (Stickney's  ed.). 

With  the  exception  of  a  son  corps  defendant, 
all  the  constructions  noticed  under  the  head¬ 
ing  of  faire  have  dropt  into  desuetude  or 
shaded  off  into  other  constructions  still  bear¬ 
ing  an  affinity  with  the  original.  A  la  ville 
prendre,  for  instance,  would  find  its  modern 
offspring  in  :  cl  prendre  la  ville ;  par  pais  fai- 
sant  in  :  en  faisant  la  paix;  and  par  trevage 
donnant  in  ;  en  donnant  {payant)  le  tribut.* 
The  direct  objects  of  the  verbs  avoir,  lais- 
ser,  tenir,  guerpir  and  some  others  may  be 
accompanied  by  the  verb  in-««^  to  express  a 

*It  is  proper  to  state  that  I  was  anticipated  in  the  above 
explanation  by  Mr.  N .  de  Wailly  in  his  “  Memoiresur  la  lan- 
gue  de  Joinville,’*  and  that  Prof.  Adolf  Tobler  (Vermischte 
Beitrage  zur  Franzosischen  Grammatik),  Paul  Klemenz 
(Der  syntactische  Gebrauch  des  Participium  Praesentis  und 
des  Gerundiums  im  Altfranz^sischen)  and  others  have  ex¬ 
pressed  their  belief  in  the  erroneousness  of  this  theory,  but 
not,  as  it  seems  to  me,  on  sufficient  grounds.  Prof.  Tobler 
bases  his  objections,  in  the  main,  on  the  fact  that  many  cases 
of  this  special  construction  are  no  more  easily  explained 
by  assuming  them  to  come  from  the  participle  in  -dus  than 
from  the  present  active  participle,  and  further  that,  where 
the  accompanying  noun  is  feminine,  we  should  expect- 
-endavi,  -andam  to  produce  -ande  and  not  -ant,,  the  form  al¬ 
ways  found.  As  an  answer  to  the  latter  part  of  this  statemens 
it  is  relevant  to  remark  that,  as  -ando,  -endo,  -antemf  -enievt, 
all  through  the  law  of  analogy,  wore  away  into-^w/,  it  hardly 
seems  a  violation  of  this  law,  but  rather  a  natural  proceeding, 
to  ■^ui-andn7n,-anda7n,-endutn,-endam,  together  with  their 
plural  forms,  all  in  the  same  category,  especially  as  they  are 
all,  to  a  certain  extent,  functional  equivalents  in  syntax. 
Replying  to  the  first  of  Tobler’s  objections,  I  will  say  that  I, 
for  my  part,  in  arguing  for  the  gerundive,  do  not  pretend  tnat 
its  admission  will  clear  away  all  the  difficulties;  my  thesis 
simply  is,  that  the  gerundive,  as  well  as  the  gerund  and 
present  active  participle,  was  operative  in  producing  the -ant 
constructions.  As  the  forms  were  confused,  it  is  not  remark¬ 
able  that  the  syntax  should  have  met  with  a  similar  fate. 


state  or  condition  existing  at  the  time  of  the 
action  of  the  principle  verb. 

Et  le  lessierent  gisant  sur  une  table. 

Joinville,  ch.  XXXVUI. 

Pur  mort  le  guerpissent  en  sabelum  gisant 

Charoinne  le  tenent  sans  alme  enfreidissant. 

Vie  de  S.  Auban,  845. 

La  dame  ot  lors  le  cuer  joiant. 

Flore  et  Blanceflor,  1065. 

Qu’’us  fis  jois  capdel’  em  nais 

Quern  te  jauzent  en  gran  doussor, 

Peire  Vidal,  Song  22  (B.'s  ed.  1857.) 

The  verbal  in  -atil  is  also  used  after  interjec¬ 
tions. 

. Es-le-vus  relevant 

E  le  flot  tut  sechi,  dunt  cist  vunt  Deu  loant. 

Vie  de  S.  Auban,  1157. 

Ast  vus  venant  de  deu  fideil. 

Brandan’s  Voyage,  580  (Rom.  St.  I.  573). 

Es  vous  par  le  chemin  errant 

Mon  seignor  Renart  le  goupil. 

B.  266, 12. 

But  here,  as  in  so  many  other  cases,  the  in¬ 
finitive  may  likewise  be  used.  The  nature  of 
the  interjection  places  it  in  the  same  category 
with  verbs  of  seeing,  beholding,  etc.  and  of 
course  the  same  construction  is  to  be  expected 
in  both  cases. 

Ves  les  armes  reluire :  tons  li  cuers  m’en  esclaire. 

Jehan  Bodel,  B.  310,  26. 

Ay  filh,  tan  vos  vech  malmenar. 

Plainte  de  Notre  Dame.  40. 

What  has  been  said  in  the  treatment  of  the 
gerund  without  a  preposition  does  not  by  any 
means  exhaust  the  subject.  In  fact,  many  of 
the  cases  arranged  under  the  caption  of  verbs 
of  motion  fall  naturally  and  logically  into  a 
more  general  division  of  the  subject;  but  as 
in  the  languages  of  Provence  and  North 
France  there  was  an  evident  predilection,  now 
to  some  extent  abandoned,  for  constructing 
the  verbal  in  -aw/with  a  verb  of  motion,  it 
was  thought  preferable  to  consider  all  ex¬ 
amples  of  this  nature  under  the  same  heading. 
By  a  more  general  division  of  the  subject  is 
meant,  that,  irrespective  of  the  signification  or 
use  of  the  principal  verb,  the  gerund  may 
play  the  part  of  an  abbreviator,  so  to  speak, 
in  the  expression  of  thought.  In  addition  to 
conciseness,  a  greater  harmony  of  word- 
arrangement  is  attained  for  the  sentence,  since 
a  constant  resort  to  conjunctions,  relative  pro¬ 
nouns,  and  temporal  and  causal  adverbs  is 


22 


The  Geruudial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


avoided.  All  tlie  Romanic  languages  held  to 
this  mode  of  expression  inherited  from  the 
Latin,  and  some  of  them,  notably  the  Spanish, 
Italian  and  Wallachian,  have  given  a  so  much 
freer  scope  to  it  than  the  mother-tongue,  that 
there  is  hardly  any  relations  which  may  not 
be  rendered  by  the  gerund.  The  Teutonic 
languages,  on  the  other  hand,  seem  not  to 
have  fallen  naturally  and  easily  into  the  parti¬ 
cipial  or  geruudial  construction.  It  must  have 
been  rare  in  Gothic,  considering  the  few  ex¬ 
amples  to  be  found  in  its  extant  literary  mon¬ 
uments.  The  Old  and  Middle  High  Ger¬ 
man  writers  show  little  liking  for  it ;  and  the 
same  may  be  said  of  Early  and  Middle  English 
authors.  With  these  languages  the  growth  has 
been  slow  and  occasioned  probably,  in  great 
measure,  by  the  influence  of  the  Romance 
tongues.  Its  earlier  and  rapid  growth  in  our 
language  is  doubtless  traceable  to  this  source. 
One  who  is  accustomed  to  read  the  German 
papers  published  in  this  country  will  notice 
with  interest  how  their  editors  and  contribu¬ 
tors,  speaking  both  languages,  allow  them¬ 
selves  to  be  drawn  by  English  influence  into 
a  license,  in  this  respect,  which  must  astonish 
in  no  small  degree  their  Teutonic  brothers  on 
the  other  side  of  the  water.  The  present 
writer  can  well  recall  his  own  feeling,  when  a 
few  years  ago  he  took  to  reading  Gennan- 
American  papers.  Having  been  brought  up, 
so  to  speak,  on  the  grammar  and  the  authors 
of  the  golden  age  of  German  literature,  he 
began  to  ask  himself  the  question,  whether 
he  had  not  misunderstood  the  teachings  of  his 
grammar  and  instructors  and  whether  they 
had  not  taught  him  a  fossilized  language  no 
longer  in  vogue.  And  it  was  some  time  before 
the  light  dawned  upon  him,  that  more  recent 
authors  indulged  in  a  freer  use  of  the  parti¬ 
cipial  construction  and  that  German-American 
editors  were  only  carrying  this  freedom  to  an 
extreme  through  the  influence  above  men¬ 
tioned.* 

It  has  been  said  that  the  use  of  the  verbal 
in  enables  the  speaker  to  avoid  the  con¬ 
stant  repetition  of  conjunctions  and  relative, 
temporal  and  causal  clauses,  while  at  the  same 

♦Note. — Goethe’s  liberal  use  of  the  participle  in  *  Her¬ 
mann  und  Dorothea '  and  some  others  of  his  works  was  not 
sanctioned  by  the  custom  of  his  predecessors  and  contempo¬ 
raries. 


time  it  gives  harmony  and  variety  to  the  dis¬ 
course.  This  posited,  we  may  expect  to  find 
it  expressing  any  of  the  numerous  phases  of 
thought  common  to  coordinate  and  subordi¬ 
nate  clauses  ;  and  such  is  the  case.  It  takes 
the  place  of  a  coordinate  clause,  and  when 
that  of  a  dependent,  it  may  represent  a  rela¬ 
tive  sentence,  an  adverbial  clause  of  time, 
cause,  manner  and  means,  a  condition,  a  con¬ 
cession,  or  even  a  final  clause,  as  has  already 
been  noted  under  eiivoyer,  ma7idar,  etc.f 

It  is  incumbent  to  make  two  divisions  of  the 
cases  that  may  arise  :  first,  where  the  gerund 
is  used  absolutely;  and,  second,  where  it 
depends  jn  some  way  on  the  principal  sen¬ 
tence.  In  the  second  category  the  gerund  may 
bear  directly  or  indirectly  upon  either  the 
subject  or  the  object  of  the  finite  verb.  The 
latter  (the  object)  has  been  partially  treated 
in  discussing  the  construction  of  voir,  trouver, 
ouir,  se?ttir,  etc.  It  may  be  stated  in  general 
terms  that  neither  of  these  divisions  affords 
many  examples.  The  absolute  construction, 
in  fact,  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  an  established 
principle  of  Old  French  syntax.  This  is  what 

fNoTE. — This  implies  that  it  is  permissible  to  speak  of 
mood  and  tense  as  belonging  to  the  gerund,  not,  it  is  true,  as 
inherent  in  it  as  an  essential  element,  but  indirectly  through 
its  connection  with  the  finite  verb.  In  this  way  it  may  come 
to  have  any  mood,  tense  or  number,  according  to  the  con¬ 
struction  of  the  sentence  in  which  it  is  contained.  The 
simple  tense  is  usually  confined  to  the  expression  of  past, 
present  and  future  time,  without  reference  to  other  actions; 
the  compound  to  that  of  past  anterior  and  future  anterior 
events,  not  excluding,  however,  perfect  or  completed  action 
independent  of  conditions.  This  holds  generally  true  of  the 
principal  members  of  the  Romanic  group  of  languages,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Wallachian,  which  is  so  free  in  the  use 
of  its  simple  gerund  that  it  seems  to  feel  little  need  of  a 
compound.  It  may  be  of  interest  here,  by  way  of  illustrat¬ 
ing  this  fact,  to  take  the  same  thought  and  trace  its  expres¬ 
sion  through  these  several  languages.  For  this  purpose  I 
select  Matthew,  iii,  i6. 

BanridOi-i;  Se  6  'h/dcvi  evOv?  dvefh/  dnu 
Tov  vSaro^. 

And  Jesus,  when  he  was  baptized,  went  up  straightway  out 
of  the  water. 

Et  quand  J^sus  eut  ^t^ baptise,  il  sortit  incontinent  de  I'eau. 

E  Ges^,  tosto  che  fu  battezzato,  sail  fuor  dell'acqua. 

Y  Jesus  despues  que  fud  bautizado,  subid  luego  del  agua. 

E  sendo  Jesus  baptizado,  subio  logo  da  agua. 

Si  batezandu-se  lisusQ,  IndatS  a  esitu  din  apS. 

That  is,  only  the  Wallachian  has  translated  the  Greek 
aorist  participle  by  the  simple  form  of  the  gerund.  Many 
other  parallels  might  be  cited  from  the  same  source.  But 
it  must  not  be  inferred  that  the  rule  is  absolute. 


23 


The  Gcrundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


we  should  expect  a  priori.  The  absolute  con¬ 
struction  was  almost  unknown  in  early  Latin. 
But  a  single  doubtful  instance  is  found  in  the 
Laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables.  The  people 
being  the  great  conservators  of  language  and 
traditions,  we  may  infer  that  the  construction 
had  hardly  worked  down  into  the  popular 
dialect  even  during  the  classical  and  post 
classical  period  of  Roman  literature.  The 
Romanic  languages,  deriving  from  the  popular 
Latin  carried  into  the  provinces  by  the  Roman 
soldiery,  would  hardly,  during  their  formative 
period,  show  any  certain  traces  of  a  syntactic 
principle  which  was  probably  foreign  to  their 
primordial  source. 

Two  forms  in  -ant  {-e^tt)  {xom  voir  and  dir 
are  of  frequent  occurrence  both  in  Old  French 
and  Provengal  ;  and  authors  do  not  seem  to 
have  had  a  very  clear  idea  as  to  their  nature, 
that  is,  whether  they  were  simple  prepositions 
or  verbs.  There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that 
they  originated  in  the  ablative  absolute  of  the 
Latin,  but  their  force  as  such  was  evidently 
not  clearly  felt.  I  should  be  disposed  to 
believe  that  in  cases  like  the  following,  where 
they  precede  the  noun  they  were  felt  to  have 
a  kind  of  prepositional  force  such  as  ‘  before,’ 
‘  in  the  presence  of 

Que  mon  language  ont  blasme  li  Francois 
Et  mes  chansons  oiant  les  champenois. 

Quesne  de  Betune,  B.  221-15, 

Par  les  dous  resnes  le  cobra 
Veant  ses  euz,  puis  i  monta. 

Gormund  and  Isembard,  571, 

La  ne  passoit  Sarrasins  ne  Escler 
Ne  I’esclinast,  volant  tot  lebarn^, 

Huon  de  Bordeaux,  B.  186-1. 

Tant  que  Abiaatar . soanet  la  offerta 

de  Joachim,  veyent  tot  lo  poble. 

Sermons  xi-xii  cent.  B.  23-28. 

But  in  the  following  lines  from  the  ‘  Vie  de 
Seint  Auban,’  ouant  and  veant  to  have 

their  full  verbal  force ; 

E  dist  en  haute  voiz,  les  sarazins  ouant  (1.  805) 

De  chastre  fu  menez,  tuz  de  la  curt  veant  (1144). 

Later  on,  Rabelais  treated  oyant  like  any 
other  form  in  -ant\  “  Panurge  ayant  pay^  le 
marchand,  choisit  de  tout  le  troupeau  un  beau 
et  grand  mouton  et  I’emportait  criant  et 
bellanl,  oyans  tons  les  autres  et  ensemblement 
bellans.” 

This  fact  testifies  to  the  persistence  all  along 
of  its  verbal  force. 


In  Provencal  ausent  and  vesent  were  gen¬ 
erally  treated  as  in  French  ;  but  they  might 
also  be  followed  by  the  preposition  de,  which 
virtually  deprived  them  of  their  verbal  function 
and  they  then  became  adverbial  or  preposi¬ 
tional  phrases,  equivalent  to  :  ‘  in  the  hearing 

of  ’  and  ‘  in  the  presence  of :  ’ 

Vesent  de  totz,  de  denlhos, 

G.  Barra,  pro  cavalier, 

Estec  dejos  lo  vert  laurier, 

G.  de  la  Barra,  224. 

E  vay  comensar  sa  razo 
Ausent  de  totz  los  Sarrasis 
ditto.  120. 

Whatever  be  the  final  conclusion  with  refer¬ 
ence  to  oyant  and  voyant,  the  circumstance  of 
their  universal  use  both  in  North  and  South 
France  and  by  authors  who  seem  to  have 
studiously  avoided  the  absolute  construction, 
argues  strongly  in  favor  of  the  presumption 
that  their  real  nature  as  absolute  constructions 
was  not  clearly  defined.* 

Excepting  these  two  crystallized  expressions, 
it  would,  I  imagine,  be  a  very  difficult  task  to 
find  an  unquestionable  example,  in  the  old 
authors,  of  the  absolute  construction.  For 
neither  in  the  ‘  Chanson  de  Roland,’  ‘Voyage 
de  Charlemagne,’  ‘Roman  de  Rou,’  La 
Bible  de  Guiot  de  Provins,’  ‘  Vie  de  S.  Auban,’ 
‘Roman  d’Aquin,’  ‘  Berte  aus  grans  pies’ 
‘Flore  et  Blanceflor,’  ‘Henri  de  Valencien¬ 
nes,’  ‘Ville-Hardouin,’  the  translation  of  ‘Guil¬ 
laume  de  Tyr,’  ‘Aiol  et  Mirabel,’  ‘Vie  de  S. 
Alexi  ’  {Romania,  viii),  ‘De  Saint  Alexi  (Joseph 
Herz),’  the  selections  in  Bartsch’s  ‘  Chres- 
tomathy,’  nor  in  various  other  shorter  pieces, 
have  I  been  able  to  come  upon  a  genuine, 
undoubted  case ;  while  voyant  and  oyant  in 
some  of  these  works  are  frequently  met ;  as, 
for  instance,  in ‘Guillaume  de  Tyr,’  eleven 
times. 

The  following  are  possibly  absolute  but 
they  are  not  clearly  so  and  may  be  otherwise 
construed  without  forcing  the  syntax. 

*Notk.— In  the  second  volume  of  the  Archivio  Glot.  Hal,, 
p.  242, 1  find  an  example  which  may  be  one  of  these  same 
constructions  on  Italian  soil. 

Ma  de  soi  vexin  alquanti, 

Per  visitar  li  logi  santi, 

De  voiante,  vegne  lanto,  etc. 

This  might  represent  either  Deo  vidente  or  Deo  volente. 
If  the  latter,  it  would  be  a  case  of  the  disappearance  of 
medial  I  in  Italian,  which  would  be  peculiar. 


24 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


La  peussiez  veier  estur  espes  e  grant 

Maint  cheval  escumer,  ses  rednes  trainant. 

Roman  de  Rou,  3242. 

Et  emporta  cil  qui  frappez  estoit,  le  glaive 
trainant.  Joinville,  ch.  LII. 

Et  li  soudans  s’enfui  on  flum  le  glaive 
trainant.  ibidem,  ch.  LXIX. 

The  only  example  contained  in  Bartsch’s 
‘  Chrestomathy  ’  is  found  in  the  selections 
from  the  ‘M^moires  de  Philippe  de  Comines  ’ : 
mais  estant  le  jour  un  peu  hauss^  et  esclaircy, 
ils  trouverent  que  c’estoient  grands  chardons. 

The  great  literary  and  artistic  movement 
known  as  the  Renascence,  which  had  been 
ripening  in  Italy  in  the  preceding  century, 
spread  northward  into  P' ranee  in  the  sixteenth, 
through  the  intimate  relations  between  the 
French  and  Italians  which  sprang  out  of  the 
wars  of  Charles  VIII  and  Louis  XII.  The 
literary  part  of  this  movement  consisted  chiefly 
in  a  recurrence  to  classical  models  ;  and  how 
much  the  literature  and  languages  of  the 
countries  reached  by  this  reformation  were 
affected,  the  most  cursory  examination  will 
show.  It  is  but  reasonable,  therefore,  to 
suppose  that  the  absolute  construction  with 
the  gerund,  which  had  not  found  favor  prior 
to  this  period,  was  immensely  helped  on  by 
the  influence  of  the  classic  languages ;  pos¬ 
sibly  also  by  the  Italian,  in  which  the  con¬ 
struction  in  question  had  been  an  established 
principle  of  syntax  from  the  earliest  times. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  French 
mind  has  manifested  the  same  fondness  for 
this  construction  as  that  of  the  other  Ro¬ 
manic  peoples.  On  the  contrary,  while  it  has 
now  become  thoroughly  naturalized,  French 
writers,  unlike  the  Spanish,  Italian  and  Portu¬ 
guese,  seem  to  fall  more  naturally  into  other 
constructions.  The  French  and  English  not 
having  gone  to  such  extremes  in  this  respect, 
have  always  in  reserve  a  means  of  producing 
fine  effects.  Witness  the  exceeding  happy 
effect  of  the  last  line  of  the  following  stanza 
from  a  poem  by  Heber  addressed  to  his  wife  : 

If  thou  wert  by  my  side,  my  love, 

How  fast  would  evening  fail 
In  green  Bengala’s  palmy  grove, 

Listening  the  nightingale. 

The  gerundial  construction,  as  has  been 
said,  is  a  shortened  device,  whereby  the  use 
of  conjunctions  and  verbs  in  personal  moods 


is  avoided.  The  precise  shade  of  meaning  of 
the  gerund  is  implied  in,  and  has  to  be 
gathered  from,  the  general  or  logical  make-up 
of  the  sentence.  If  converted  into  a  finite 
mood,  the  conjunction  requisite  to  make  the 
clause  equivalent  will  be  (in  French)  any  one  of 
these  :  si,  attendu  que,  vu  que,  puisque,  parce 
que,  pendant  que,  etc.  I  do  not  find  a  conces¬ 
sion  so  expressed  {quoique,  bie7i  que),  altho’ 
the  difference  between  condition  and  conces¬ 
sion  is  often  so  slight,  that  one  may  be  taken 
for  the  other,  as  the  example  below  cited  from 
PONSARD  will  show. 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  determine  the  exact 
relation  implied  in  the  gerund  ;  for  this  reason 
it  is  not  as  clear  as  the  personal  construction, 
and  would  be  instinctively  avoided  where 
rigid  accuracy  is  demanded.  This  could  be 
especially  recommended  in  case  of  the  Italian 
and  Spanish,  in  which  gerunds  are  sometimes 
so  loosely  dragged  in,  that  one  is  sorely  tried 
before  getting  at  their  meaning,  to  determine 
which  must  frequently  prove  puzzling  even  to 
a  native.  The  subject  may  be  either  a  noun 
or  a  pronoun,  which  usually  precedes  its  pred¬ 
icate.  Instances  may  arise,  however,  where 
the  position  may  be  reversed.  Occasionally 
the  subject  is  omitted  and  has  to  be  gathered 
from  the  context ;  but  this  is  rare. 

Si. 

Parleriez-vous  ainsi,  C4sar  ^tant  present  ? 

Ponsard. 

II  y  a  li  plus  qu’il  ne  faut  pour  faire  tomber, 
le  cas  ^chdant,  la  t^te  du  due  de  Chaslin. 

X.  de  Mont^pin. 

Attendu  que,  vu  qtie. 

Certaines  congregations  n’etant  pas  recon- 
nues  par  le  Vatican,  les  d^crets  pourraient 
leur  etre  appliques  sans  peines. 

Courrier  des  Etats-Unis. 

Puisque. 

Je  ne  dirai  plus  rien,  le  silence  dans  ce  cas 
etant  une  necessity. 

Paulina  de  Souza. 

Parce  que. 

II  aurait  dit  qu’il  ne  pent  en  aucun  cas  fitre 
condamne,  Pacte  n’ayant  pas  eu  de  temoins. 

Courrier  des  Etats-Unis. 

Et  d’ailleurs  j’espionnerais  mal,  la  ruse  me 
faisant  horreur. 

X.  de  Montepin. 


25 


The  Gerundial  Co7istruction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


Pendant  que. 

Je  ne  croyais  pas  que,  moi  vivant,  elle  ddt 
jamais  voir  le  Jour. 

Boileau. 

Aprts  que. 

The  force  of  this  conjunction  can  only  be 
rendered  in  French  by  the  compound  tenses 
of  the  gerund ;  but  preference  is  given  to  the 
finite  clause  with  aprts  que  or  the  perfect  in¬ 
finitive  with  aprts. 

The  following  example  is  very  peculiar,  in 
that  the  relative  qui  is  made  the  subject  of  the 
absolute  clause.  This  is  probably  to  be  re¬ 
garded  as  a  solecism : 

Je  passais  prds  d’une  frigate  anglaise  qui 
m’ayant  tird  quelques  coups,  tous  mes  ra- 
meurs  se  Jet^rent  ^  I’eau. 

Paul-Louis  Courier. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  resolve  this  sentence 
from  Michelet,  in  which  the  gerunds  are 
possibly  causal  but  which  at  the  same  time 
are  logically  in  apposition  with  and  define 
“accidents  terribles,’’  instead  of  being  the 
cause  of  them.  The  latter  part  of  the  sentence 
could  have  been  better  expressed  by  a  per¬ 
sonal  mood  ;  oil  les  chevaux  s’effrayaient,  recu- 
laient,  etc.  The  gerund  being  frequently 
resorted  to  in  lively  descriptive  narration  may 
explain  the  freedom  of  its  employment  here  : 
On  pent  Juger  des  accidents  terribles,  qui 
eurent  lieu  dans  cette  masse  compacte,  les 
chevaux  s’effrayant,  reculant,  s’dtouIfant,Jetant 
leurs  cavaliers,  ou  les  froissant  dans  leurs 
armures  entre  le  fer  et  le  fer. 

The  following  sentence,  too,  is  not  well  put 
together,  since  it  is  not  clear  whether  the  ge¬ 
rundial  clause  is  to  be  construed  with  the  pre¬ 
ceding  or  succeeding  member ;  but  this  comes 
more  from  the  faulty  construction  of  the  sen¬ 
tence  than  from  the  clause  being  gerundial. 

Toutefois,  comme  il  n’est  que  temps  de 
sauver  de  I’oubli  et  d’une  perte  imminente  ces 
intdressants  monuments  de  I’esprit  et  de  la 
langue  de  nos  p^res,  nos  vieilles  traditions 
disparaissantdejour  enjour,  il  y  avaiturgence 
de  se  mettre  a  I’ceuvre. 

Montel  et  Lambert,  Chants  pop. 

du  Languedoc. 

Subject  omitted,  the  action  referable  to  the 
speaker. 


Matrimonialjement  parlant,  il  n’y  avait  plus 
mari  qui  osat  rdpondre  de  sa  femme,  ni  amant 
de  sa  maitresse. 

Dumas. 

Subject  omitted,  the  agent  to  be  gathered 
from  the  context. 

N’ayant  eu  avec  lui  aucun  lien  publique, 
peut-^tre  cette  ouverture  vient-elle  convena- 
blement  de  moi,  qui  ne  puis  ^tre  atteint 
d’aucune  partialitd. 

Guizot. 

Grammarians  have  agreed  to  call  the  sub¬ 
ject  the  accusative  in  this  construction.  Hav¬ 
ing  come  into  use  at  a  time  when  the  distinc¬ 
tion  between  cases  had  been  abolished,  Tt 
would  be  as  reasonable  to  call  it  nominative 
absolute. 

The  dependent  gerund  is  a  little  more  varied 
in  its  functions  than  the  absolute.  In  addition 
to  the  relations  assigned  to  this  use  of  it,  as 
noted  above,  it  may  be  concessive,  instrumen¬ 
tal,  simply  coincident  in  its  action  with  the 
principal  verb,  or  take  the  place  of  an  adjec¬ 
tive  clause,  and  be  used  in  other  ways  that  can 
not  be  adequately  defined  by  the  ordinary 
grammatical  terminology. 

Relative  clause. 

Proiez  pur  moi  Jesus  en  ciel  regnant. 

Vie  de  S.  Auban,  822, 

The  early  French,  having  a  much  greater 
license  in  regard  to  word-position  than  the 
language  of  the  present  day,  could  place  the 
verbal  in  -afit,  which  represented  the  relative 
clause,  in  almost  any  part  of  the  sentence. 
Examples. 

U  uns  paYens  haut  s'escrie  une  mace  portant. 

Vie  de  S,  Auban,  826. 

L'ermite  est  apeM  Corentin 

Messe  chantant  don  baron  saint  Martin. 

Roman  d'Aquin,  3027. 

Coincident  action. 

Brochant  lasche  les  rednes  si  feri  I'alemant. 

Roman  de  Rou,  3255. 

Comcident  action  (co-ordinate  clause). 

Il  monta  sor  son  ceval  et  prent 

S’amie  devant  lui  baisant  et  acolant. 

Aucasin  et  NicoUtc. 

Co-ordinate  clause  (not .  coincident  with  the 

finite  verb). 

Alhis  fut  mis  en  la  chaainne 

Comme  murdrier,  soufTrant  grant  paine, 

Renart  le  Contrefait,  B.  417,21. 


26 


The  Gernndial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


Concession{?). 

Deu  hi  tut  guverne  regnant  en  majesti. 

Vie  de  S.  Auban,  782. 

Adverbial  clause  of  time,  equivalent  to  a  past 
anterior  tense. 

Quoy  voiant  les  barons,  incontenant  presque 
confus  lui  nianderent  que  tres-voulontiers  ilz 
feroient  entendre  la  rayne  de  Chippre  ^  faire 
paix  avecques  le  conte  Thibault  de  Cham- 
paigne. 

Joinville,  Hist,  de  S.  Louis. 
Instrument,  means,  etc. 

Ne  sai  se  vous  sav^s  che  que  lisant  trovon. 

Herman  de  Valenciennes. 

Clers  es  e  apris  I’as  en  tes  livres  lisant. 

Vie  de  S.  Auban,  1193. 

This  last  use  of  the  gerund  is  very  rare  in 
Old  French,  and  in  the  modern  language  the 
instrtiment,  means,  etc.,  are  usually  rendered 
by  the  gerund  with  en.  Three  e.xamples  of  it 
are  found  in  Guillaume  de  Tyr,  but  all  of 
them  are  the  same  word,  lisant-.  (Liv.  x,  ch. 
14 ;  Liv.  xi,  chs.  13  and  30).  I  have  not  noted 
it  with  any  other  words.  Passing  south  to  the 
language  of  the  Troubadours,  we  find  it  one  of 
the  most  common  of  constructions,  and  like¬ 
wise  the  gerund  more  freely  used  to  express 
relations  which  in  the  north  were  rendered 
by  other  constructions. 

Instrument,  means,  etc.,  (Provencal). 

Per  qu'eu  vos  die  c’ab  aital  gen 

No  vuihatz  parlan  contrastar. 

R.  Vidal  de  Bezandu. 

Et  el  la  enauset  cantan  e  comtan  a  son  poder. 

Bib.  der  Troub.  xlii. 

As  a  number  of  examples  have  been  col¬ 
lected  to  show  the  ease  and  freedom  with 
which  the  writers  of  Provence  employed  the 
gerund,  they  will  be  given  here  for  want  of  a 
better  place. 

E  risen  ela  se  levet  e  garda  e  vi  le  fol  [de] 
Peire  Vidal  e  comeisset  a  cridar. 

Bib.  der  Troub.  xxii. 

E  ploran  len  preguet  quel  en  degues  pendre 
vengansa.  ditto. 

Lai  estet  longa  sazo  e  lai  fes  maintas  bonas 
cansos  recordan  del  baizar  quel  avia 
emblat.  ditto. 

E  sai  perden  gazanhar 

E  quan  sui  vencutz  sobrar, 

Peire  Vidal,  song  12  (B.*s  ed.  1857), 


Car  demandan  es  horn  reconogutz  ♦ 

E  responden,  per  que  etc, 

ditto,  song  34, 

Car  sieu  parlan  ab  un  de  gran  valensa 
Die  un  fols  mot,  tu  fas  mays  de  falhensa. 

Bertran  de  Carbonel  de  Marcelha. 
Aissy  cum  io  foe  ha  son  usi 
Que  ben  usan  fai  so  servisi. 

Le  Libre  de  Senequa. 

Quar  quan  alcus  i  fai  lo  son 
Chantan  lo  pot  abreviar. 

Terramagnino  de  Pise,  Doctrina  de  Cort,  767. 
Per  que  la  reblan 
Mas  mas  jontas,  humilian. 

G.  Faidit.  B.  143,  24, 

Examples  parallel  with  many  of  these  are 
found  in  the  Langue  d’oil,  as  the  former 
quotations  show,  but  they  are  sporadic,  one 
might  almost  say,  exceptional,  while  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  South  France  employed  the  gerund 
nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  freely  as  the  Spanish 
and  Italian.  A  few  other  exceptional  cases 
are  of  a  nature  which  forbids  logical  classifi¬ 
cation.  That  immediately  following,  from  the 
‘Vie  de  S.  Auban,’  takes  the  place  of  a  final 
clause. 

. u  fu  gent  al'm^e 

Atendant  la  parole  k  queu  chief  fust  mende. 

Line  581. 

La  voiz  del  segnur  frainanz  les  cedres,  e 
frainderat  li  sire  les  cedres  Libani. 

Psalm  xxix.  B.  42,25. 

Mil  sumes  par  numbre  e  vus  sul  demandant, 

Mes  ke  un  suls  i  faut  malade  surgurnant. 

Vie  de  S.  Auban,  1189. 

That  is,  in  the  last  two  examples  the  verbal  in 
-ant  is  connected  by  a  conjunction  with  the 
finite  verb,  as  if  it  were  itself  a  verb  in  a 
personal  mood. 

. je  n’en  ferai  noiant 

Ne  pris  vo  deu  un  denier  valissant. 

Huon  de  Bordeaux,  B.  189,6. 

No  quier  de  raenz  o  valhan  dinier. 

G.  de  Rossilho,  7682. 

This  expression  was  common  both  in  early 
French  and  Provencal  and  is  so  strikingly 
identical  with  our  not  inelegant  slang,  worth  a 
cent,  as :  my  pony  won’t  gallop  worth  a  cent, 
that  one  is  strongly  tempted  to  believe  in  a 
historical  connection  between  the  two.  It 
would  be  but  another  instance  of  the  import¬ 
ant  part  played  by  the  people  as  conservators 
of  once  well-established  linguistic  phenomena. 


27 


The  Gcrnndial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  La^iguages. 


Esdreganz  esdreceras  tun  arc,  les  seremenz 
as  lignedes  les  quels  tu  parlas. 

Canticum  Habaccuc,  B.  43,17. 
Only  in  the  Portuguese  have  I  noticed  this 
duplication  or  gemination,  so  to  speak,  of 
verbs  for  purpose  of  emphasis. 

Vi  claramente  visto  o  lume  vivo. 

Os  Lus.  V.  x3. 

Andando  vae  Dom  Gayfeiros 

Andando  a  bom  andar. 

Hardung,  Romanceiro  Part.  II.  8. 

Andando  andando  toda  a  noite  andava ; 

LA  por  madrugada  que  me  attendava. 

ditto,  II.  163. 

Two  gerunds  asyndetically  used. 

Fichant  musant  par  mi  ces  voies 

Cort  audevant  por  eus  de^oivre. 

Roman  de  Renart,  B.  zoo,  zi. 

Issi  parlant  li  enfant  vinrent 

Plorant  et  par  les  mains  se  tinrent. 

Flore  et  Blanceflor,  zSzy. 

This  mode  of  expression  is  not  confined  to 
the  French  ;  it  is  quite  common  in  some  of  the 
other  languages. 

Lo  vers  fo  faitz  al.s  enblabotz 

A  Poivert  tot  jogan  riden, 

Peire  d’Alvernhe,  B.  80,  24. 

Aquela  gentil  domna  ma  domna  Beatris  .  .  . 

. era  ben  apercebuda  quel  moria  languen 

deziran  per  ela  si  la  toquet  piatatz. 

Bib.  der  Troub.  xxxii. 

Cosi,  benedicendomi  cantando, 

Tre  volte  cinse  me,  si  com*  io  tacqui. 

Dante,  Par.  xxiv,.j5i. 

Que  havendo  tanto  j  A  que  as  portas  vendo 

Onde  o  dia  ^  comprido  e  onde  breve. 

Os  Lus,  I.  27. 

Intrdnd  Inte  apSrfindu-se  cu  evantallul. 

V.  Alecsandri,  Scora  M^tei. 

Compare  also  Shakespeare’s :  So  weeping 
smiling  greet  I  thee,  my  earth. 

But  returning  from  this  digression,  it  is  to 
the  modern  language  that  we  have  to  look  for 
the  full  and  easy  use  of  the  gerund  under  the 
second  heading,  that  is,  when  not  absolutely 
employed.  Here  it  is  universally  made  to 
discharge  any  of  the  following  functions ;  (a) 
relative  or  adjective  clause;  (b)  temporal 
clause ;  (c)  conditional  clause ;  (d)  a  conces¬ 
sion  ;  (e)  causal  relations  ;  and  (f)  to  determine 
the  modality  of  some  finite  verb  of  motion, 
which  last  we  saw  to  be  the  most  common  use 
of  the  gerund  in  the  early  language.  A  few 
examples  will  illustrate  the  modern  usage. 

(a)  Ce  n’^tait  encore  qu’un  vague  profil 
se  d^tachant  rl  peine  sur  I’azur  du  ciel. 

Erckmann-Chatrian. 


(b)  Ce  disant  la  grande  Sarah  [Bernhardt] 
se  pelotonna  sur  son  petit  pouf  ^  peine  plus 
haut  que  le  tapis. 

L’Ev^nement  (Paris  Paper). 

(c)  Madame  de  Vergis,  sachant  le  comte 
sur  ses  gardes,  n’avait  pas  osdsortir  de  I’hdtel 
cette  nuit. 

X.  de  Mont^pin. 

(d)  Soit;  mais  ne  disant  mot,  je  n’en  pense  pas  moins. 

Moli^re,  Tartufe,  II.  2. 

(e)  L'homme  dans  son  miroir  se  fait  de  grands  saluts  ; 

Le  miroir  les  lui  rend,  mais  dans  son  ame  obscure 
II  rit  et  salt  le  fond  de  Phomme,  ^tant  mercure. 

V.  Hugo,  L'Ane, 

(f)  A  mesure  que  la  langue  d’oc  allait 

s’effa^ant  on  voyait  grandir  la  langue  d’oil  ou 
le  roman  wallon.  Peschier. 

LA  sur  une  charette  une  poutre  branlante 
Vient  mena9ant  de  loin  la  foule  qu'elle  augmente. 

Boileau. 

In  sentences  like ; — 

Et  la  bonne  femme  se  levant  comme  un  res¬ 
ort,  accourut  me  d^barrasser  de  mon  man- 
teau,  and  ;  Je  me  bornai  donc^  prier  Sperver 
de  bien  se  garder  de  faire  feu  sur  la  Peste- 
Noire,  le  pr^venant  que  cela  lui  porterait 
malheur  (Erckmann-Chatrian),  the  gerundial 
clause  is  not  subordinate  to  that  containing 
the  finite  verb.  The  two  actions  are  con¬ 
secutive  to  each  other  and  form  the  members 
of  a  compound  sentence,  as  may  be  seen  by 
converting  the  gerund  into  a  verb  of  the  same 
mood  and  tense  as  the  other  verb ;  la  bonne 
femme  se  leva  et  accourut,  etc. 

As  the  Latin  used  the  present  participle 
preceded  by  quasi,  in  the  sense  of  as  if,  so  the 
Romance  tongues  employ  the  gerund  after 
words  of  similar  import. 

Au  fond  se  tient  son  page,  immobile  et  comme  attendant 
ses  ordres. 

V.  Hugo,  Ruy  Bias,  IV.  i. 

Je  le  consid^rais  comme  m’appartenant, 
puisque  je  le  portals  au  theatre. 

X.  de  Montdpin. 

Noi  ne  gim  quasi  gabbando. 

Guittone  d’Arezzo. 

Ya  estS  hecho  brasa,  y  ya  estd  como  tem- 
blando  de  frio. 

G.  de  Castro,  moc.  de  Cid. 

Con  este  pensamiento  gui6  Rocinante 
hacia  su  aldea,  el  cual,  casi  conociendo  la 
querencia,  con  tanta  gana  comenzd  A  caminar. 

Don  Quijote,  ch.  4. 


28 


The  Gerundial  Construetion  in  the  Romanic  Languag^es. 


Gerund  with  hi. 

We  now  come  to  the  consideration  of  the 
gerund  with  in.  The  use  of  other  prepositions 
in  Latin  (ab,  de,  ex,  etc.,  with  the  ablative;  ad, 
ob,  inter,  etc.  witli  the  accusative)  with  the 
gerund  was  not  excluded,  altho’  they  can  not 
be  said  to  have  been  as  common  as  in.  This 
to  a  certain  extent  is  implied  in  the  fact  that, 
of  all  the  prepositions  so  used,  only  in  has 
held  its  place  in  the  Romanic  tongues.  That 
other  prepositions  were  allowable  in  the  first 
centuries  of  the  growth  of  these  languages 
may  be  inferred  from  a  few  isolated  examples 
found  in  the  early  written  documents.  Diez 
cites  from  G.  Villari:  Con  levando  ogni 
di  grandissime  prede,  as  an  instance  of  con  in 
old  Italian.  I  have  not  observed  any  other 
case  of  it.  In  the  following  passage  from  an 
anonymous  Spanish  poet  of  the  fifteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  para,  I  presume,  is  to  be  regarded,  as 
governing  burlando. 

Pues  el  favor  que  vas  dando 
Es  mucho  para  burlando 
Y  poco  para  de  veras. 

In  early  Provengal,  per  is  sometimes  met : 

Si  per  chantan  esjauzir 
Pogues  horn  cobrar  joven 
Assatz  fora  convinen. 

But  this  is  exceptional  rather  than  regular  and 
calls  for  no  special  comment. 

In  French,  such  expressions  as  par  ce  fai- 
sant,  par  treuage  donant,  etc.,  are  probably,  as 
has  been  stated,  to  be  explained  by  the  gerun¬ 
dive  of  the  Latin  ;  au  muriant,  en  vostre  vi-  ■■ 
vant,  en  estant  and  other  similar  phrases  are 
the  verbal  in  ant  substantively  employed; 
while  a  I'aube  aparaissant,  devers  soleil  cou- 
chant,  de  soleil  couchant,  au  soleil  levant,  etc., 
are  constructions  formed  on  the  analogy  of  the 
Latin  ad  orientem  solem.  Practically,  there¬ 
fore,  the  study  of  the  prepositional  gerund 
does  not  extend  beyond  its  use  with  in. 

Witt  the  Latin  gerund,  in  generally  express¬ 
ed  time,  or  the  means,  instrument,  etc.  : 

Contrivi  in  quaerendo  vitam  atque  aetatem 
meam.  Terence. 

Altero  utitur  in  narrando  aliquid  venuste, 
altero  in  jaciendo  mittendoque  ridiculo. 

Cicero. 

Conveniet  cum  in  dando  munificum  esse, 
turn  in  exigendo  non  acerbum.  Cicero. 


The  gerund  thus  used  did  not  admit  of  any 
object  but  a  neuter  pronoun.  The  Romanic 
languages  improved  on  their  parent  both  by 
not  restricting  the  object  and  by  increasing 
the  number  of  relations  and  functions  per¬ 
formed  by  the  gerund.  In  all  of  these  lan¬ 
guages  except  the  Wallachian,  this  construc¬ 
tion  has  been  preserved.  The  only  relic  of  it 
I  have  found  in  the  Wallachian  is  the  adverbi¬ 
al  phrase  :  in  curindu—&n.  courant,  au  pas  de 
course,  hence,  rapidly,  quickly.  Not  having 
access  to  any  of  the  earliest  monuments  of 
this  language,  I  have  not  been  able  to  ascer¬ 
tain  whether  the  construction  in  question  ever 
was  a  part  of  its  syntax. 

Its  struggle  for  existence  in  some  of  the 
sister. languages  has  been  a  hard  one.  The 
Italian  seems  not  to  have  taken  to  it  at  first, 
as  it  is  found  but  once  in  the  whole  of  the 
Divine  Comedy  (‘ Purg.’  v,  45);  and  altho’ 
Dante  was  wont  to  boast  that  his  verse  never 
drove  him  to  say  anything  he  did  not  wish  to 
say,  it  is  highly  probable  that  he  here  stuck 
in  the  in  to  make  out  his  line. 

la  the  ‘  Gerusalemme  Liberata,’  I  have 
found  in  used  with  the  gerund  nine  times. 
Diez  observes  that  the  most  recent  authors 
employ  it  oftener  ;.but  with  all  due  deference 
to  the  statement  of  the  great  master  and 
pioneer,  I  do  not  find  this  to  be  true.  One 
may  often  read  on,  in  authors  of  the  present 
day,  for  fifty,  a  hundred  and  even  two  hundred 
pages  without  once  meeting  it  (some  gram¬ 
mars  even  pronounce  the  construction  obso¬ 
lete  at  the  present  day).  In  Silvio  Pellico’s 
‘  Le.mie  Prigioni  ’  and  ‘  Francesca  da  Rimini,’ 
a  volume  of  over  two  hundred  izmo  pages,  I 
have  not  found  it  at  all ;  and  he  surely  belongs 
to  the  “neueste  Schriftsteller.”  But  the  total 
absence  of  the  construction  here  is  probably 
exceptional ;  and  it  is  not  pretended  that  Diez 
did  not  feel  justified  in  his  assertion,  from  the 
authors  he  had  read.  As  the  necessity  for 
the  use  of  in  seems  to  be  so  little  felt  in  Ital¬ 
ian,  its  employment  might  be  as  much  a 
mannerism  with  some  authors  as  its  absence 
would  be  in  others. 

The  relations  expressed  by  the  Italian  pre¬ 
positional  gerund  are  not  varied  and,  as  far  as 
I  have  observed,  are  only  temporal  and  instru¬ 
mental.  The  clause  in  which  it  occurs  may  be 


29 


The  Gcrundial  Construction  in  the  Romatiic  Languages. 


turned  into  a  subordinate  sentence  introduced 
by  quando,  nicntre  che,  etc.  The  action  of 
the  principal  verb,  therefore,  is  supervenient 
to  that  of  the  gerund. — Pero  pur  va’,  ed  in 
andando  ascolta,  that  is,  mentre  che  vai  as- 
colta. 

All  the  examples  in  the  ‘  Gerusalemme 
Liberata  ’  may  be  resolved  in  a  similar  way. 


£  da  tergo,  in  passando^  alzj  la  mano.  iii,  29. 

E  il  caso  in  narrando  aggrava  molto,  v,  33. 

E  sta  sospeso  aspettando  quale 

Avri  la  fera  lite  avvenimento.  vi,  55. 

E  in  rileggendo  poi  le  proprie  note 

Rig6  di  belie  lagrime  le  gote.  vii,  19. 

E  dove  in  passando  le  vestigia  ei  posa, 

Par  che  ivi  scaturisca,  o  che  germoglie.  xviii,  *3. 
Stanno  le  schiere  in  rimirando  intente 
La  prestezza  de’  fabbri  e  le  arte  ignote.  xviii,  45, 
Suona  il  corriero  in  arrivando  il  corno.  vii,  29. 

. e  non  affretti 

Le  sue  miserie  in  aspettando  i  mali.  xiv,  64. 


The  first  six  of  these  examples  are  resolv¬ 
able  into  temporal  clauses  beginning  with 
mentre  che ;  the  seventh  with  quando,  or  do- 
poche ;  while  the  eighth  is  instrumental. 
After  stare,  as  in  the  sixth,  it  is  more  common 
to  omit  the  in. 

. e  d'alto 

Stanno  aspettando  i  miseri  I'assalto. 

*  Gerus.  Lib.,*  xix,  35. 

Un  grosso  volume  di  novelle  toscane  sta 
preparando  lo  stesso  autore  per  publicarlo  in 
Firenze.  Riv.  di  Lett.  Pop.,  vol.  i,  fasc.  i. 

As  examples,  from  other  sources,  of  hi  with 
the  gerund  may  be  given : 

Fui  dato  in  voi  amando, 

Ed  in  vostro  valere.  Frederigo  ii,  Rei  di  Sicilia. 
. se  I’ardor  fallace 

Dur6  molt’  anni  in  aspettando  un  giorno.  Petrarca. 

Osopiti  in  aspettando 

i;  finito  il  vostro  bando.  Ales.  Manzoni. 

In  ripensando  io  tremo, 

•  Come  dal  duolo  estremo 

Ei  fosse  vinto  e  preso.  Benedetto  Menzini. 

Ci  punge  a  morte  in  promettendo  mele. 

Carlo  Maria  Maggi. 

E  in  ci6  dicendo  levossi  la  gonella  e  gliele 
mostrb.  Giuseppe  Parini. 

Imparerai  solo  in  morendo  che  non  in  tutto 
ubbedir  dovrai  al  tuo  padrone. 

Giuseppe  Taverna. 

Il  romito  in  veggendo  la  estupefazione  e  lo 
.  •  "SO 


scompiglio  di  Gianni,  riteneva  a  gran  fatica  le 
risa.  .  Michele  Colombo. 

But  all  the  phases  of  thought  rendered  by 
the  Italian  gerund  with  in  may  be,  and  gener¬ 
ally  are,  attained  by  the  gerund  without  in. 
This  accounts  for  the  relative  infrequency  of 
the  former. 

The  old  Spanish  was  not  more  partial  to  the 
prepositional  gerund  than  the  early  Italian. 
Diez,  speaking  of  the  subject,  says:  “altere 
Schriftsteller  brauchen  es  noch  sparsam,  im 
Cid  kommt  es  vielleicht  garnicht  vor.”  I  pre¬ 
sume  he  means  by  vielleicht  that  a  categorical 
statement  would  be  rash  in  view  of  the  circinn- 
stance  that  some  parts  of  the  manuscript  ha^e 
so  far  proved  illegible.  I  have  carefully  ex¬ 
amined  Karl  Vollmoller’s  text  (Halle, 
1879)  and  have  not  discovered  any  example 
of  the  construction. — A.  S.  Vogelin’s  ‘  Ro- 
mancero  del  Cid  ’  (Herders  ‘  Cid,’  Heilbronn, 
1879)  contains  six  examples.  Coming  down 
to  the  sixteenth  century,  I  find  Cervantes 
using  en  with  the  gerund  eighty-five  times  in 
‘Don  Quijote.’  An  examination  of  other 
works  of  this  period  and  a  little  later,  shows 
that  the  construction  had  now  become  well 
established. 

The  ‘Gramatica  de  la  Real  Academia  Es- 
pafiola  ’  (p.  211)  sets  forth  as  follows  the  rule 
for  determining  the  use  of  en  with  the  gerund 
in  Spanish  : 

Si  el  gerundio  expresa  una  idea  anterior  & 
la  contenida  en  la  oracion  principal,  suele  ir 
precedido  de  la  preposicion  en,  v.  gr. :  en 
comiendo  saldremos  k  paseo. 

In  order  to  test  the  utility  of  this  formula,  I 
have  examined  several  authors  from  Cervan¬ 
tes  down  to  the  present  time,  and  I  must  con¬ 
fess  I  do  not  find  it  of  the  slightest  practical 
worth.  For  while  it  is  true  that  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  (possibly  more)  en  with  the  gerund 
expresses  an  action  anterior  to  that  contained 
in  the  principal  sentence,  it  is  equalTy  true 
that,  for  one  case  of  the  gerund  with  en,  there 
will  be  found  a  half  dozen  without  en,  express¬ 
ing  priority,  and  that,  too,  not  only  on  the 
same  page  but  even  in  the  same  sentence. 
Take  the  passage  from  ‘Don  Quijote,’  Pt.  I, 
ch.  1 : 

Y  tan  rey  seria  de  mi  estado  como  cada  uno 
del  suyo,  y  siendolo  haria  lo  que  quisiese,  y 


The  Gerundial  Consfructiofi  in  the  Romanic  Lang7iages. 


haciendo  lo  qiie  quisiese  haria  mi  gusto,  y 
haciendo  mi  gusto  estaria  contento,  y  en  es- 
tando  uno  contento  no  tiene  mas  que  desear  y 
no  teniendo  mas  que  desear  acabdse. 

Now,  no  one  will  pretend  that  the  idea  of 
priority  is  any  more  prominent  in  en  estando 
than  in  siendo  and  some  others  of  these  ger¬ 
unds.  For  one  could  not  cease  to  want  before 
having  become  content ;  nor  could  Sancho  do 
what  he  pleased  before  having  become  king. 
In  both  cases,  the  predication  of  the  gerund 
precedes  and  continues  along  with  that  of  the 
finite  verb.  Further  on,  in  Pt.  II,  ch.  xxi,  we 
have  a  similar  use  and  omission  of  en\  “El 
cura  oyendo  lo  cual,  le  dijo  que  atendiese  k  la 
salud  del  alma  &ntes  k  los  gustos  del  cuerpo.” 
And  a  few  lines  lower:  “  En  oyendo  Don 
Quijote  la  peticion  del  herido,  en  altas  voces 
dijo  que  Basilio  perdia  una  cosa  muy  justa.’’ 

The  curate  and  Don  Quixote  both  had  heard 
before  they  spoke  ;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the 
context  to  lead  us  to  infer  that  they  broke  in 
upon  the  speaker  before  he  was  done.  The 
action  of  oyendo  in  both  instances  was  com¬ 
pleted,  and  not  in  progress  at  the  time  of 
their  beginning  to  speak.  Judging  by  these 
and  other  examples,  we  may  assume  that 
Cervantes,  in  using  or  omitting  the  en,  was 
governed  solely  by  the  position  of  the  subject : 
el  cura  oyendo,  but  en  oyendo  Don  Quijote ; 
en  estando  uno  contento ;  en  acabando  de 
decir  su  glosa  Don  Lorenzo,  etc. 

If  the  rule  of  the  Spanish  Academy  was 
founded  on  the  usage  of  the  most  recent 
authors,  it  fares  no  better,  as  the  following 
citations  from  Caballero’s  ‘Un  Servilon  y 
un  Liberalito  ’  will  show  : 

En  teniendo  yo  veinte  y  cinco  afios,  respon- 
dia  con  caraje  Leopoldo,  si  hay  entdnces 
constitucion,  he  de  procurar  ser  disputado  k 
cortes.  Ch.  iii. 

Y  abriendo  el  libro  en  el  sitio  donde  habia 

por  senal  una  cuartilla  de  papel  con  palotes 
. se  puso  k  leer.  Ch.  v. 

Here  en  teniendo  expresses  an  action  prior 
to  that  of  he  de  procjirar,  but  so,  too,  does 
abriendo  to  se  puso  k  leer ;  for  the  reading 
could  not  begin  until  after  the.  book  had  been 
opened. 

Y  metiendo  la  mano  en  el  bolsillo  sac6  un 
pequeno  envoltorio. 


B.  P.  Galdos,  ‘  La  Fontana  de  oro,’  ch.  ii. 

En  tocando  k  este  punto  le  daban  arrebatos 
de  Santa  c61era,  y  entdnces  no  se  la  podia 
aguantar.  Ditto,  ch.  v. 

These  parallels  might  be  increased  to  any 
extent,  but  what  has  been  given  will  suffice  to 
demonstrate  the  utter  worthlessness  of  the 
rule  laid  down  by  the  grammar  of  the  Acade- 
rhy.  If  the  rule  is  defective  in  this  respect,  on 
the  other  hand  there  are  other  ways  in  which 
it  is  equally  so.  It  does  not  state,  for  instance 
(what,  from  my  observation,  I  believe  to  be 
true),  that  eti  is  omitted  when  the  gerund  is 
accompanied  by  a  negative.  I  do  not,  how¬ 
ever,  lay  much  stress  on  this  as  holding  good 
under  all  circumstances,  as  a  wider  experience 
may  show  the  error  of  my  belief.  But  of  the 
following  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  the 
Spanish  gerund  with  en  does  not  always  ex¬ 
press  completed  anterior  action,  as  the  dictum 
of  the  Spanish  Academy  would  lead  us  to 
infer.  “  En  comiendo  saldremos  k  paseo,’’ 
the  example  given  by  the  Academy  to  illus¬ 
trate  its  rule,  means:  after  we  shall  have 
eaten,  we  shall  go  out  to  walk.  That  is,  the 
action  of  en  comiendo  is  past  and  completed 
before  that  of  saldremos  begins.  But  any 
number  of  examples  might  be  adduced  to 
show  that  the  prepositional  gerund  frequently 
expresses  an  action  which  is  coincident  with 
that  of  the  principal  verb  and  may  dr  may  not 
continue  after  the  completion  of  the  action  of 
the  latter. 

Que  no  serA  muerte, 

Si  en  viendote  muero.  Jorge  de  Montemayor. 

Y  hoy  en  durmiendo  un  marido 

Halla  A  su  lado  otro  Adan. 

F.  Gomez  de  Quevedo  y  Villegas. 

En  siendo  gusto,  sef.ora, 

No  importa  que  no  sea  bueno.  Agustin  Mureto. 

The  first  two  of  these  examples  rhay  be  inter¬ 
preted  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  Acade¬ 
my  ;  but  it  is  more  in  harmony  with  the 
thought  to  take  them  to  mean :  whe^t  or  while 
seeing,  sleeping.  About  the  third  there  can 
be  no  dispute;  it  is  not  covered  by  the  rule. — 
The  relations  expressed  by  the  Spanish 
gerund  with  en  are  temporal,  shading  off 
sometimes  into  conditional  and  causal.  The 
examples  already  given  will  suffice  as  illustra¬ 
tions.  In  some  of  the  most  recent  authors 


The  Gernndial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Lan^tages. 


there  seems  to  be  a  growing  tendency  to 
abandon  the  use  of  en  altogether. 

Of  the  Portuguese  prepositional  gerund 
there  is  nothing  very  special  to  say  that  has 
not  already  been  covered  by  the  remarks  on 
the  Spanish.  Not  having  at  hand  any  of  the 
earliest  literary  documents,  I  have  not  been 
able  to  form  any  opinion  relative  to  its  histori¬ 
cal  growth.  Em  is  employed  four  times  in 
the  ‘Lusiads’;  i,  8  ;  iii,  136;  v,  8 ;  vii,  25.  In 
each  case  it  is  equivalent  to  an  adverbial 
clause  of  time.  The  whole  of  Hardung’s 
‘  Romanceiro  Portugues  ’  (600  pages)  offers  but 
three  examples  :  i,  pp.  171  and  203,  and  ii,  243 ; 
the  first  two  are  temporal,  the  third  temporal 
or  conditional.  Authors  of  the  present  day 
use  the  construction  very  sparingly ;  and  the 
attempt  to  formulate  a  rule  for  its  use  would 
prove  as  abortive  as  in  the  case  of  the  Spanish. 
The  two  languages  do  not  here  differ  material¬ 
ly  in  their  syntax,  as  would  naturally  be  ex¬ 
pected  from  their  close  affinity  to  each  other. 
— The  Italian,  Spanish,  and  Portuguese  do 
not  show  such  a  decided  preference  for  the 
prepositional  gerund  as  the  languages  of  the 
north-western  Romance  territory.  There  it 
became  naturalized  in  the  first  centuries  of 
their  development  and  was  even  with  them  of 
more  frequent  occurrence  than  it  has  ever 
been  with  the  sister  languages  of  the  south 
and  south-east. 

But  altho’  the  early  French  and  Provencal 
use  of  the  gerund  with  eri  may  be  pronounced 
extensive  as  compared  with  the  other  lan¬ 
guages,  it  is  very  rare  as  compared  with 
modern  French  and  Proven9al.  In  ‘Girart 
de  Rossilho,’  a  poem  of  nine  thousand  lines,  I 
find  en  used  but  twice ;  while  in  Aubanel’s 
‘La  Miougrans  Entre-Douberto  ’  and  Mis¬ 
tral’s  ‘  Mireio,’ two  modern  poems  contain¬ 
ing  about  the  same  amount  of  matter,  the 
same  construction  occurs  one  hundred  and  six 
times.  I  have  counted  in  one  of  Emile  Zola’s 
latest  novels,  of  524  pages,  i2mo,  five  hundred 
and  twenty  two  examples;  that  is,  nearly  once 
on  a  page.  This  is  probably  a  greater  num¬ 
ber  of  times  than  the  prepositional  gerund  can 
be  found  in  the  whole  of  French  literature 
from  the  ninth  to  the  fourteenth  century.  The 
following  table  will  be,  to  one  who  is  acquaint¬ 
ed  with  the  works  it  embraces,  a  sufficient 


proof  of  the  probability  of  this  statement. 

‘  Chiinson  de  Roland,’  3  times;  ‘Voyage  de 
Charlemagne,’ 5  t.  ;  ‘Flore  et  Blancefior,’  10 
t. ;  ‘  Les  Joies  de  Nostre  Dame’  {Zeit.  f.  R. 
Phil.,  iii),  2  t. ;  ‘  Vie  de  Seint  Auban,’  5  t. ;  ‘  La 
Vie  de  Saint  Alexi  ’  {Romania,  viii),  o  t. ; 

‘  Roman  de  Rou  ’  (Andresen,  Theil  i  und  ii), 
5  t. ;  ‘  Roman  d’Aquin,’  2  t.  ;  ‘  Berte  aus  grans 
pi4s,’  9  t. ;  ‘  Hist,  de  S.  Louis  ’  (Joinville),  12 
t. ;  ‘  Hist,  de  I’empereur  Henri  ’  (H.  de  Valen¬ 
ciennes),  8  t.  ;  ‘  Conqueste  de  Constantinoble  ’ 
(Villehardouin),  o  t. ;  ‘  Translation  of  Guil¬ 
laume  de  Tyr,’  6t.  ;  ‘  Aiol  et  Mirabel,’  10  t. ; 

‘  Guiot  de  Provins,’  o  t. 

1  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  carry  this 
investigation  so  far  in  Provencal,  as  the  follow¬ 
ing,  together  with  my  own  general  observation, 
convinced  me  that  the  proportion  was  about 
the  same.  ‘Bib.  der  Troubadours,’  10  times; 
‘Four  Card.  Virtues’  (Daude  de  Pradas),  i 
t. ;  ‘  Girart  de  Rossilho,’  2  t. ;  ‘  Peire  Vidal’s 
‘  Songs,’  2  t. 

The  frequency,  infrequency  or  total  want  of 
the  construction  in  an  author  is  traceable,  of 
course,  to  psychological  causes.  That  one 
writer  should  employ  it  oftener,  or  less  often, 
than  another,  only  shows  that  it  was  a  part  of 
his  mental  equipment,  and  the  expression  of 
his  thoughts  would  naturally  be  through  the 
most  familiar,  most  habitual  channel — in  the 
jargon  of  the  new  philosophy,  along  the  line 
of  least  resistance.  If  Joinville,  for  instance, 
uses  en  with  the  gerund  twelve  times,  and 
Villehardouin  when  doing  about  the  same 
amount  of  writing  does  not  employ  it  at  all, 
this  only  proves  that  with  the  one  it  was  a 
conscious  part  of  his  mode  of  thought,  while 
the  thoughts  of  the  other  sought  different 
paths  of  outlet,  because  more  accustomed  to 
run  in  them.  All  men  have  words  and 
ways  of  combining  them  into  sentences 
peculiar  to  themselves ;  and  originality  of 
style  is  proportional  to  the  amount  of  diver¬ 
gence  from  the  ordinary  formularies  of 
thought.  The  discrepancy,  therefore,  be¬ 
tween  these  two  authors,  in  the  respects  just 
mentioned,  proves  nothing  more  than  the  fact 
itself— namely,  the  discrepancy  and  the  cause 
thereof.  Nothing  further  can  he  educed  from 
it,  and  this  should  make  us  chary  in  setting 
too  high  a  value  on  statistical  methods  in 


32 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


philology,  a  thing  which  we  are  all  more  or 
less  prone  to  do. 

If  the  prepositional  gerund  of  the  old  French 
compares  badly  with  the  modern  usage  in 
point  of  frequency,  it  does  also  in  variety. 
One  cannot  but  be  struck  with  this.  It  forced 
itself  upon  me  almost  at  the  \'ery  outset  of 
my  investigations.  The  want  of  variety  is 
seen  in  this,  that  with  many  authors  en  is  used 
only  in  certain  combinations  and  after  certain 
verbs,  that  is,  they  use  en  only  in  a  few  to 
them  apparently  fixed  or  stereotyped  ex¬ 
pressions.  The  most  common  of  these  are : 
en  dormant,  en  riant,  en  pleurant  and  some 
others,  especially  after  verba  declarandi. 
This  may  be  illustrated  by  citing,  in  brief,  all 
the  examples  of  several  works. — '  Chanson  de 
Roland,’  3  times,  as  follows:  en  riant  I’ad  dit 
(619),  dist  en  riant  (862),  il  la  prent  en  gisant 
(2523). — ‘Flore  et  Blanceflor,’  10  times:  en 
plorant  li  respont  (210),  respont  en  baisant 
(603),  en  lisant  cou  racontoient  (664),  en  plorant 
prist  a  parler  (716),  respont  en  plorant  (2276), 
en  dormillant  li  respondi  (2529),  en  baisant  se 
sont  rendormi  (2554),  respont  en  plorant  (2795), 
tot  en  plorant  (2986),  en  riant  icon  li  dient 
(3172). — ‘  Berte  aus  grans  pi6s,’  9  times:  en 
plorant  (208),  tout  en  plorant  (521),  e7i  fuiant 
(844),  tout  e7i  plorant  (1252),  en  dormant  li 
sambloit  (1678),  plorant  (2535),  en  plorant 
(2452),  en  alant  (2754),  en  plorant  (3247). — 
JoiNviLLE  ‘Hist.de  S.  Louis,’ (de  Wailly’s 
edition)  12  times :  en  plourant  (207),  distrent  e7i 
riant  (298),  gardast  en  mangant  (430),  comme 
en  couroussant  (439),  en  ce  faisant  (494),  tout  en 
plorant  (556),  souflfre  en  li  gardant  (560),  diSt  en 
riant  (673),  me  fu  avis  en  dormant  (731)  appela 
en  s’aide  e7i  disant  (756),  e7i  regardant  rendi 
s’orison  (757),  dist  e7i  profetizant  (794). — ‘  Vie 
de  Seint  Auban,’ 5  times :  e7i  murant  jeta  un 
cri  (249),  e7i  suspirant  dit  (382),  dist  e7i  reschis- 
nant  (753),  en  plurant  a  dit  (868),  s’a  dit  en 
suspirant  (1115)- — ‘Roman  de  Rou  ’  (Andre- 
SEN,  i,  ii),  4  times;  en  fuiant  fu  ocis  (563),  e7i 
dormant  (909),  dist  en  riant  (1573),  en  plurant 
(1824). 

This  will  suffice  to  give  an  idea  of  the  phe¬ 
nomenon  above  mentioned,  which  is  very 
marked  in  ‘  Flore  et  Blanceflor  ’  and  ‘  Berte 
aus  grans  pi^s.’  In  most  other  writers  no 
such  decided  tendency  is  manifest ;  for  while 


the  above  often  recurring  expressions  are 
found,  other  examples  sufficiently  demonstrate 
that  the  writers  used  en  with  the  gerund  in 
accordance  with  a  general  principle  of  syntax. 

Examples:  ‘Guillaume  de  Tyr’  (P.  Paris’s 
edition),  6  times:  s’escusa  en  jurant  (p.  83), 
s’en  va  en  aguisant  (190),  estoit  apareuz  en 
dormant  (208),  en  languissant  (210),  salua  e7i 
inclinant  (329),  leur  sembloit  en  dormant  (418). 
— ‘  Voyage  de  Charlemagne,’  5  times  :  dist  e7t 
riant  (278),  esguardant  cum  e7i  riant  (360),  en 
bruslant  (479),  e7i  turnant  (480),  en  reversant 
(481). — ‘  Henri  de  Valenciennes,’  8  times  :  en 
preservant  (ch.  i),  escriant  (8),  e7i  fuiant  (8), 
en  plovrant  (9)  e7t  escriant  (25),  e7i  fuiant  (25), 
ett  respondant  (38),  en  sozriant  (38). 

What  now  is  the  force  of  the  prepositional 
gerund  as  used  at  this  period  of  the  growth  of 
the  language?  The  majority  of  the  above  ex¬ 
amples,  and  numerous  others,  teach  us  that  its 
most  common  function  consisted  in  taking  the 
place  of  an  adverbial  clause  of  time,  always, 
therefore,  modifying,  or  affecting  in  some 
way,  the  action  of  the  principal  verb.  The 
gerund’s  action  in  such  cases  is  coincident 
with  that  of  this  verb,  but  the  latter  is  always 
incidental  to  the  former.  In  addition  to  this, 
the  gerund  also  expressed  the  mea7is,  the  in- 
stru7ne7tt  and  occasionally  the  7na7tner.  I  say 
occasionally,  because  I  have  noticed  but  one 
rather  doubtful  instance  of  7/ian7ter. 

Means,  instrument :  Et  en  ce  faisant  il  occi- 
oient  les  lyons  de  leur  saietes. 

Joinville,  ch.  xcvi. 

S’cle  tant  fait  que  vos  rie 

En  riant  vos  decevra.  B.  334,  ji. 

Dont  m’est  il  bien  avis 

baisant  me  traTstes.  ‘Blonde!  de  Neele,*  B,  226,  3. 

Par  joie  d'amors  vraie 

Sui  en  baisant  mors.  Ditto,  225,  4. 

En  belHant  I'ourent  pass^, 

Ne  I'aveient  mie  esgard^.  *  Roman  de  Ron/  B.  112,  35. 

Et  pour  itant  aprendre  a  harper 

Et  ma  dame  en  chantant  loer. 

.Guil.  de  Machau,  B.  408,  35. 

Manner : 

'‘^  Car  la  grant  hache  Pataint  en  rechipant. 

*  Roman  d’Aquin,*  1594. 

These  (thne,  i77str7i7)ient,  and  7fian7ter)  are 
the  regular  and  almost  exclusive  offices  dis¬ 
charged  by  the  gerund  with  e7i,  during  the 
first  centuries  of  the  development  of  the  lan- 


3.^ 


The  Gerundial  Cofisfruction  in  the  Romanic  Languages. 


guage.  The  rule  for  its  use  should  be,  that  , 
the  actions  of  both  verbs  be  performed  by  the  | 
same  agent :  il  dit  en  pleura7it  \  but  there  are 
numerous  exceptions  to  this,  which  are  per¬ 
fectly  logical  and  always  justifiable,  provided 
no  ambiguity  arises  from  the  violation  of  the 
rule. 

Maint  hume  enmi  lur  veie  mort  tut  estendu, 

A  maint  uni  en  dormant  le  chief  sevre  de  bu. 

‘  Roman  de  Rou/  909. 

En  fuiant  li  ont  fait  les  ronces  maint  escroe 

De  sa  robe  et  la  dame  entour  li  la  renoe.  ' 

*  Berte  aus  grans  pi-s/  844. 

II  se  misent  a  la  fuite  et  li  nostre  les  ochi- 
oient  en  fuiant.  H.  de  Valenciennes,  ch.  viii. 

Such  sentences  are  lucid  enough  and  no 
reasonable  objection  can  be  raised  to  them  ;  [ 
but  a  construction  like  the  following  squints  | 
(as  the  French  say)  and  barely  escapes  obscuri¬ 
ty  by  the  thought  itself  and  not  by  the  syntax 
of  the  sentence.  j 

Et  des  oiseaus  et  des  bestes  sauvages 
Faisoient  douter  les  orguilleus  corages 
En  escoutant  le  doulz  son  de  sa  lire. 

Guil.  de  Machau,  B.  4x0,  13. 

The  gerund  is  sometimes  loosely  thrown 
in  where  other  constructions  would  be  a  more 
natural  expression  of  the  thought,  as  seen 
when  analyzed. 

Les  letres  de  fin  or  estoient 
Et  en  lisani  cou  racontoient. 

‘  Flore  et  Blanceflor/  644. 

Tresk’  as  espaules  sans  fosete, 

Ounie  et  grosse  en  avalant. 

Adam  de  la  Halle,  B.  377,  23. 

Here  the  meaning  is  :  the  letters,  when  read, 
or  on  being  read,  recounted  this  ;  and  second¬ 
ly,  the  neck  was  ounie  et  devenait  grosse  eti 
avalant,  since  the  poet  desired  evidently  to 
depict  a  neck  that  tapered  from  the  shoulders 
upward. 

Again,  e7i  is  occasionally  omitted,  where, 
by  general  usage,  it  ought  to  have  been  em¬ 
ployed  : 

Or  vous  gisds,  biax  pere,  bien  i  venr^s  dormant. 

H.  de  Valenciennes,  B.  87,  14. 
Fortment  plurant  dist  as  freres. 

*  Brandans  Seefahrt,'  333. 

Dist  chascun  lermant :  las  pur  quei  nasqui  ? 

‘Vie  de  Seint  Auban,*  1503. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  sometimes  found 
where  universal  custom  has  sanctioned  its 
omission  : 

,'-.4 


A  genous le  trouvai  ourant 
A  jointes  mains  et  en  plourant. 

‘Jehan  Bodel,’  B.  313,  31. 

Rut  these  examples  are  exceptional  and  are 
probably  confined  to  poetry,  as  I  have  not 
observed  any  such  in  prose.  The  Provencal 
usage  does  not  differ  essentially  from  the 
P'rench,  as  might  be  presumed.  Only  in  the 
former  there  does  not  seem  to  have  existed 
the  same  tendency  to  the  use  of  the  crystallized 
expressions  so  notable  in  the  latter. 

Instrument,  means  ; 

Complir  si  pot  en  pessan 

Per  tot  home  qu’en  a  talan.  Daude  de  Pradas. 

Mils  aten  horn  en  atenden, 

Motas  vetz  no  fa  en  corren.  Le  Libre  de  Senequa. 

E  vau  conortan 
Mon  cor  en  chantan 

So  que  no  cugei  far  ogan.  G.  Faidit,  B.  141.  7. 

Temporal : 

En  chantan  m’aven  a  membrar 

So  qn'eJ  cug  chantan  oblidar.  * 

Folquet  de  Marseille,  B.  119.  6. 

Lo  payre  sanct  en  donan  la  crosada 
Lay  vay  premier  coma  veray  pastor. 

Pasiorela,  B.  404.  28, 

We  find  also  in  Provencal  the  same  depar¬ 
ture  occasionally  from  the  common  usage, 
which  constructs  the  gerund  without  en  with 
to  fi7id  and  verbs  of  motion. 

Qu'enans  fui  trobatz  en  dormen 

Sabre  chevau.  Guillem  IX,  Songs. 

L'us  ab  fols  motz,  I’autres  vay  en  fenhen 

Qu’el  fay  cobias  naturalmen  e  be. 

Bertran  Carbonel  de  Marcelha. 
Adonc  se  son  armatz  et  de  la  vila 
Son  salitz  frapan  et  aisso  en  cridan. 

‘  Chanson  de  la  Croisade.' 

From  what  now  has  been  said  and  shown,  a 
sufficiently  definite  judgment  may  be  formed 
regarding  the  early  use  of  the  prepositional 
gerund  in  Provencal  and  French.  The 
modern  languages,  having  widened  its  sphere 
of  usefulness  to  the  enormous  extent  above 
indicated,  have  naturally  given  ,  to  it  more 
varied  functions  to  discharge,  as  we  shall  see. 

temporal ,  the  modern  French  gerund 
with  en  may  express  : 

A.  I.  An  action  anterior  to  and  completed 
before  that  of  the  principal  verb  ;  as,  Eti  ap- 
prenant  I’issue  de  I’entreprise  la  reine  Hor- 
tense  accourut  en  France.  Guizot. 

Une  personne  qui  me  plaisait  et  (jui  s’est  re- 


The  Gcriindial  Constructioti  hi  the  Romanic  Languages. 


tir^e  en  apprenant  qiie  nion  p^re  avail  Iaiss4 
plus  de  dettes  qiie  de  capital.  George  Sand. 

2.  The  action  may  begin  before  and  end 
with  that  of  the  principal  verb  ;  as,  Si  I’Aimer 
^pique  fut  fait  prisonnier  par  eu.x,  rAimer  his- 
torique  trouva  la  mort  en  les  combattant. 

Gaston  Paris. 

Le  R^v.  Miller,  doyen  de  1 ’university  de 
mydecine  et  de  chirurgie  de  Philadelphie  a 
yty  arrety  dimanche  en  allant  a  Pyglise. 

Courrier  des  Etats-  Unis. 

3.  Its  action  may  begin  before  and  continue 
after  that  of  the,  finite  verb ;  as,  Le  comte  de 
Niedeck  se  couche  en  claquant  des  dents. 

Erckmann-Chatrian. 

II  entra  en  tenant  ft  la  main  quelques  papiers. 

X.  de  Montypin. 

4.  The  action  of  both  verbs  may  begin  at 

the  same  time;  as,  Pierre  avail  tuy  sa  mat-; 
tresse  et  s’ytait  enfui  en  emjx)ftant  la  petite 
fille.  X.  de  Montypin. 

Elle  a  appeiy  M.  Greluche  et  lui  a  dit  en  lui 
montrant  une  avant-sedne ;  Tiens :  voil^  ma- 
dame  de  Sartorys.  Froufrou,  ii,  2. 

5.  The  gerund’s  action  may  begin  after  that 
of  the  principal  verb  ;  as, 

Mais  surtout  quand  la  brise 
Me  touche  en  voltigeant, 

La  nuit  j’aime  Ctre  assise, 

Etre  assise  en  songeant.  V,  Hugo. 

II  lira  les  dossiers  du  tiroir  et  les  lut  at- 
tentivement  Pun  apr^s  I’autre  en  prenant  des 
notes.  X.  de  Montypin. 

.Sometimes  the  temporal  gerund  shades  off 
partially  into  an  adverb  of  manner:  Je  ne 
viens  qu’en  passant,  vous  voyez,  je  suis  en 
grande  toilette.  A.  de  Musset. 

L’historien  recueillit  en  passant  des  dytails 
et  des  tymoignages.  Villemain. 

B.  When  expressing  causal,  or  instrument¬ 
al  relations,  the  action  of  the  prepositional 
gerund  always  precedes  that  of  the  finite  verb. 
This  necessarily  follows  from  the  fact  that  the 
latter  is  but  the  result  of  the  former,  the  two 
actions  standing  to  each  other  in  the  relation 
of  cause  and  effect:  M.  Constans  pouvait 
surmonter  cette  difficulty,  en  soumettant  au 
cabinet  une  liste  des  ytablissements  qu’il  se 
proposait  de  fermer. 

Courrier  des  Etats-  Unis. 


I  Vous  faites  une  si  vive  impression  sur  lui 
j  que  j’ai  voulu  compiyter  son  bonheur  en  le 
rapprochant  de  son  idole.  Balzac. 

In  such  cases  the  gerund  is  objective  in 
character.  Where  the  cause  is  subjective,  it 
j  becomes  the  motive  for  the  action  of  the 
I  principal  verb,  and  the  gerund  without  en  is 
j  then  used  ;  as,  N’entendant  rien  aux  discus¬ 
sions  politiques,  j’ai  repris  Pytat  militafre. 

Scribe. 

Sentences  are  occasionally  crossed,  whose 
cast  is  not  distinctly  definable,  the  gerund 
being  capable  of  temporal,  or  instrumental, 
interpretation  :  En  suivant  Sperver,  qui  mon- 
tait  Pescalier  d’un  pas  rapide,  je  pus  me  con- 
vaincre  que  le  chateau  Niedecle  myritait  sa 
ryputation.  Erckmann-Chatrian. 

C.  The  gerund  with  en  expresses  a  conces¬ 
sion.  The  actions  of  the  two  verbs  are  then 
coincident. 

Coligny  dans  son  coeur  a  son  prince  fid’ele 

Aimait  toujours  la  France  en  combattant  contre  elle. . 

Voltaire. 

The  concession  may  be  strengthened  by  the 
addition  of  tout,  or  mime :  Napoiyon  fut  ac- 
cueilli  par  les  acclamations  du  peuple  qui, 
tout  en  maudissant  la  conscription  .  .  .  .  .  . 

voyait  en  lui . le  vaillant  dyfenseur  du 

sol  national.  Thiers. 

Myme  en  supposant  qu’on  organise  la  vente 
gynyrale  du  clergy,  la  guerre  ne  pouvait  faire 
autrement  que  de  mettre  le  royaume  d’ltalie, 
etc.  Chevalier. 

And  the  same  thing  is  accomplished  by  con¬ 
trast,  as  it  were ;  that  is,  by  using  in  the 
principal  sentence  one  of  the  adverbs  toutefois, 
cependant,  niannwins,  just  as  tho’  a  correla¬ 
tive  {quoique,  bien  que)  had  been  used  in  the 
preceding  clause. 

Cet  ^mour  en  naissant  est  toutefois  extr'me. 

Corneille. 

Mais  Sir  Robert,  en  proclamant  la  complete 
indypendance  de  PEspagne  dans  le  choix  du 
mari  de  la  reine,  persiste  cependant  au  fond  ft 
en  exclure  les  princes  fran9ais.  Guizot. 

D.  The  gerund  with  en  may  take  the  place 
of  a  conditional  clause,  upon  whose  realization 
depends  the  action  of  the  principal  verb.  Its 
action,  therefore,  is  contingently  anterior  to 
the  latter. 


The  Gerundial  Construction  in  the  Romanic  Lanf^iages. 


En  sondanr  ccs  cachots,  en  comptant  ces  victimes, 

Ils  diront :  £lle  aussi  mise  u  mort  pour  ses  crimes. 

C.  Delavigne. 

Parmi  les  formations  ^  radical  latin  que  le 
suffixe  ati  a  produites  en  roumain  {^en  admet- 
tant  que  au  soit  rest4  intact),  je  n’en  trouve 
que  deux.  Romania,  ix,  107. 

This  becomes  a  very  convenient  way  of  ex¬ 
pressing  a  condition,  when  it  is  desired  to 
throw  in  a  parenthetical  condition  after  the 
conjunction  si\  Et  quisait  si,  en  d^pensant 
un  million  sur  cette  lande,  on  n’en  fera  pas 
line  affaire  qui  aura  au  bout  du  compte  une 
tournure  assez  honorable?  Fr^d^ric  Soulid. 

E.  Lastly,  the  gerund  with  en  may  serve  to 
modify  the  action  of  the  principal  verb. 
This,  strictly  speaking,  is  only  true  of  verbs 
of  motion,  and  only  then,  when  the  manner  of 
the  movement  is  defined  or  limited  by  the  ger¬ 
und. 

Les  voici  qui  viennent  en  trottinant  devant 
leur  m^re.  Pylodet’s  ‘  Fr.  Reader.’ 

II  vient  en  rampant  mettre  aux  pieds  de  son 
maitre  son  courage,  sa  force  et  ses  talents. 

Buffon. 

Here  en  trottinant  describes  the  manner  of 
coming  of  the  little  chickens,  and  eti  rampant 
that  of  the  coming  of  the  dog,  and  I  think  we 
should  distinguish  the  gerund  as  so  used  from 
its  use  in  such  sentences  as :  Le  baron  s’avan- 
ga  jusqu’^  la  porte  en  souriant  malicieusement. 

E.  About. 

En  souriant  does  not  affect  the  action  of 
s'avanga  but  is  merely  a  concomitant  action  ; 
whereas,  if  we  substituted  for  it  some  such 
words  as  en  bronchant,  en  chancelant,  they 
would  become  a  part  of  the  movement  ex¬ 
pressed  by  s'avanqa  and  hence  be  strictly 
adverbs  of  manner. 

When  used  after  ttre,  the  prepositional  ger¬ 
und  becomes  the  real  predicate  of  the 
sentence ;  as,  Ils  se  plaignaient  que  leurs  fati¬ 
gues  eussent  4t4  en  augmentant.  S4gur. 

As  regards  the  subject  of  the  gerund  with 
c«,  the  same  usage  prevails  at  the  present 
day  as  in  the  early  language;  both  actions 
are,  for  the  most,  performed  by  the  subject  of 
the  finite  verb,  as  the  examples  above  quoted 
show.  The  departures  from  this  general  rule 
are  of  the  same  character  as  those  already 
noted. 

Subject  in  Dative  :  Dieu  nous  envoie  souvent 
le  bien  en  dormant ;  envoie  cela  ^  ta  mtire  et 


assure-la  que  j’aurai  soin  d’elle  et  de  toi. 

Fr^d^ric  II,  Roi  de  Prusse. 

No  subject  expressed  ; 

La  fortune  vient  en  dormant,  ce  qui  prouve 
que  ce  n’est  qu’un  reve. 

Tintamarre,  Aug.  1880. 

The  latter  sentence  may  be  objected  to  on 
the  ground  of  its  not  being  logically  con¬ 
structed,  since  fortune  does  not  come  while 
asleep  ;  but  we  recognize  at  first  sight  that  the 
sentence  means :  la  fortune  nous  vient  en  dor¬ 
mant,  and  hence  no  doubt  is  left  in  the  mind. 
The  real  objection  to  this  exceptional  use  of 
the  gerund  is  where  the  sentence  is  so  loosely 
constructed  as  to  leave  it  doubtful  whether 
the  gerund  refers  to  the  subject  of  the  princi¬ 
pal  verb,  or  to  its  object.  Instance  the  two 
following  sentences : 

Vienne  la  voile  qui  t’emm^ne  en  souriant  je 
te  verrai  partir.  A.  de  Musset. 

En  payant  pourriez-vous  me  donner  une 
assiette  de  soupe  et  un  coin  pour  dormir  dans 
ce  hangar?  V.  Hugo. 

Where  several  gerunds  follow  each  other  in 
the  same  sentence,  en  is  used,  as  a  rule,  with 
them  all,  if  they  are  separated  from  each  other 
by  intervening  words  ;  as.  Tout  en  regardant 
les  boutiques,  en  paraissant  admirer  les  objets 
d’art  et  en  souriant  aux  jolies  femmes,  le 
baron  creusait  son  probl^me. 

X.  de  Mont4pin. 

But  where  the  gerunds  follow  each  other  in 
immediate  succession,  the  preposition  gener¬ 
ally  is  omitted  with  all  but  the  first.  Euphony 
doubtless  is  the  governing  principle  in  both 
instances. 

Une  poulette  jeune  et  sans  experience, 

En  trottant,  cloquetant,  grattant, 

Se  trouve,  je  ne  sais  comment. 

Fort  loin  du  poulailler,  berceau  de  son  enfance. 

Florian. 

C’est  ainsi  qu’il  apprend  ^  sentir  la  pesan- 
teur,  etc,  ...<?«  regardant,  palpant,  4coutant, 
surtout  en  comparant  la  vue  au  toucher. 

J.-j.  Rousseau. 

The  amount  of  modern  Provencal  literature 
to  which  I  have  access  is  small,  but  I  believe  it 
is  enough  to  justify  me  in  the  assertion  that 
the  language  employs  en  with  the  gerund 
about  as  in  French  proper.  The  accompany¬ 
ing  French  translations  regard  do  not  once 
in  twenty  times  resort  to  any  other  construc¬ 
tion.  The  citation,  therefore,  of  examples  is 
unnecessary. 

,6 


\ 


» ' 

n/-.-  > 
..  r^*  Z  >■ 


